


Death Doesn't Discriminate (Between the Sinners and the Saints)

by sangha



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Discrimination, Gay Bucky Barnes, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, In The Flesh AU, M/M, Medication, Minor Character Death, Minor Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson, Minor Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli, Past Abuse, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Zombie Apocalypse, Self-Hatred, Terminal Illnesses, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, Zombies, but I promise they will be alright in the end, this is just one big angst fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:04:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 57,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8708272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sangha/pseuds/sangha
Summary: James Buchanan Barnes died four years ago, while deployed to Afghanistan. An IED blew up his convoy, his left arm in pieces, his life ended. Eleven months later, his lungs filled with stale air. He was in a wooden box. He had never been this hungry. Somehow he clawed his way through the wooden lid, through dirt and sand. He didn't seem to need to breathe at all. All he knew was hunger.Now, four years later, Bucky is just trying to make a life for himself, when he meets Steve and he is forced to decide how Steve is going to fit into this new life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the tragically short-lived BBC series _In the Flesh_ , about the undead (aka Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferers) being re-integrated into society (if you haven't seen it, go watch it!! It's got actual queer protagonists and everything!!!). Please heed the tags and warnings on this fic. I will add more specific warnings in the chapter notes whenever necessary, but please be aware that this fic deals with some very intense stuff. This story works with flashbacks, which I've isolated into separate chapters. The flashbacks are where most of the angst happens and if you want more detailed descriptions of their contents (beyond the warnings I'll put up), feel free to [message me](http://hufflepuffbuckybarnes.tumblr.com/). If there's something you'd like me to tag that I haven't tagged (yet), also please don't hesitate to tell me :).
> 
> I plan to update this story weekly.
> 
> A million thanks to [Sietske](http://thorinsbraidedpubes.tumblr.com/) and [Ymke](https://www.facebook.com/ymkedegraaffart/?fref=ts) for their endless patience while listening to me complain about writing. 
> 
> This story was written during NaNoWriMo. Title taken from Wait For It by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Bucky hated his reflection. The only time he looked in a mirror was in the mornings, when he made sure he at least looked somewhat human before even glancing at the mirror. He still wasn't used to seeing an empty space where his left arm should be. He always avoided his own eyes. He hated those dead things staring back at him. He taught himself to put in his contacts without having to look in the mirror, which took him longer than he cared to admit. But it was worth it; this way he didn't have to see himself _that_ way. He always applied his makeup carefully, trying to make it look as natural as possible. His goal was to blend in.

James Buchanan Barnes died four years ago, while deployed to Afghanistan. An IED blew up his convoy, his left arm in pieces, his life ended. Eleven months later, his lungs filled with stale air. He was in a wooden box. He had never been this hungry. Somehow he clawed his way through the wooden lid, through dirt and sand. He didn't seem to need to breathe at all. All he knew was hunger. It was all he remembered from those days: insatiable hunger.

He moved to into his current apartment a while ago, but he mostly kept to himself. The building was inhabited almost exclusively by other Partially Deceased Syndrome sufferers, the living having evacuated soon after the first few started moving in. His apartment was barely a home. A mattress on the floor served as his bed; he figured since he didn't really _need_ sleep anyway, he wouldn't invest in an actual bed. A single chair with a small coffee table stood close to the window. The only real sign that the apartment was actually lived in were the books strewn around the apartment. His kitchen was unused and in terrible shape. Bucky suspected the landlord was fine with PDS sufferers occupying the building for that very reason: they were very low maintenance. He would never have to come in to fix any problems with kitchen appliances and PDS sufferers generally didn't make much of a mess of their apartments. And even if they had complaints, it wasn't as if the landlord would bother to keep them satisfied. He hadn't bothered to do anything about upkeep ever since the building became predominantly PDS. Easy money for him, but shitty living conditions for the rest of them. The building looked like it was about to fall apart.

Despite living in a building of people like him, Bucky only regularly spoke to one of his neighbors, and that was only because she simply wouldn't leave him alone. Wanda Maximoff lived next door to him and had wormed her way into his life. She moved to New York some time after the Rising from some Eastern European country Bucky had never even heard of. When Bucky moved in, she took one look at him and apparently decided right then and there to aggressively pursue his friendship. He pretended to be annoyed by it, grumbling constantly, but in reality he was relieved to have someone around who wasn't scared of him. Besides, he genuinely enjoyed her company. She was kind and compassionate, and though she visibly fretted over Bucky, she never asked too many questions or pressed too hard on topics that Bucky had resolutely decided he would never bring up. She just always opened a door for Bucky to talk and if he wanted to walk through it, she would be there to listen to him. Though he hadn't told her everything - not even close, in fact - he had still shared more with her than he ever thought he would when he first started looking for a place of his own. 

Wanda always insisted that he should go out more, but her efforts were mostly futile. He went out to work - a job the government had set him up with as part of some ridiculous rehabilitation program - and to go to the library. There were no other reasons for him to leave his apartment, so he didn't. Groceries were mostly a thing of the past - PDS sufferers didn't eat - and whatever he did need, he bought in bulk or online to minimize his trips to the store.

His job, a dreadfully dull warehouse gig was the only reason he went outside in the first place every day. He didn't have to interact with anyone except some of the other staff, and even that was limited. He didn't mind. He had seen the way they looked at him when he came in on his first day. He had paid special attention to his makeup, wanting to pass as living that day, but when he arrived, his boss told him he had to wear a bright orange vest declaring he was PDS. That put him in his place quite firmly. His coworkers only emphasized his outcast status, a mixture of fear and disgust lining their faces. Some of them still looked at him that way, but mostly they ignored him, so he did the same. 

The small library he frequented was just a coincidental discovery: it happened to be on his way to work. Once he found it, he started heading out a few hours early on a regular basis just to spend some time basking in the quiet calm and immersing himself in a book. He didn't have a library card; it would require him to reveal his PDS status and though that was no grounds to refuse him, he would rather hide. One of the librarians, Angie, seemed to have caught on to his undead condition, but she never mentioned it and so neither did he.

That Tuesday afternoon, it was extremely cold. Bucky couldn't feel it of course, but he saw how people in the streets seemed to wrap around themselves in an effort to keep warm. He put on his thickest winter coat, blending in seamlessly with the rest of the crowd.

Tuesdays were Angie's days, so he felt comfortable he wouldn't be scrutinized by the staff. As he walked in, he saw her sitting behind her desk, her girlfriend Peggy sitting on the desk facing her. Peggy hung around the library a lot on her lunch breaks and her days off, so she had become a familiar face. Angie looked up as he walked in, Peggy following Angie's line of vision. They greeted Bucky and he waved to them. Angie sometimes came to talk to him, asking him how he was doing. She never tried to pry, though he could sense she was curious. He suspected Peggy had told her not to ask too much, since Angie seemed like the type to blurt out things she might later regret, while Peggy seemed much more reserved. His favorite chair, a solitary entity in the back of the building, was unoccupied. He found the battered copy of _Never Let Me Go_ he had begun reading last week and settled in the comfortable chair. Even for a library, this was a quiet corner, out of the line of sight unless anyone actually walked past him, completely sheltered by bookcases as he was. This could actually be a good day, even if he had work later.

He was absolutely absorbed by his novel when he was disrupted by someone in the aisle opposite him. The other man didn't make much noise at all, but just his presence was enough to set Bucky on edge. Rationally, he knew nothing would happen, but he was still worried he would somehow be recognized for what he was. The other man turned around. Where Bucky would normally have averted his eyes as quickly as possible, he was now caught staring.

The man had an extremely pale, sickly complexion. Big, unnaturally gray eyes, the kind that Bucky avoided seeing every morning, stared back at him. But that's not what had Bucky staring. Living in a major city, it was impossible not to run into PDS sufferers who refused to wear their contacts or makeup. Wanda regularly went natural as well, so he was used to seeing others like this. No, the thing that caused him to stare was that this man was beautiful. Eyes that seemed almost too big to be contained by his face, plush lips that looked pink even in his current undead state, and unruly blond hair to frame his angelic face.

"It's rude to stare," the man said flatly.

Bucky quickly turned his stare on his shoes. "I'm sorry." If he'd still been alive, he knew his cheeks would be turning faintly red by now. "Didn't mean to offend." He didn't know how to communicate with the other man, afraid he'd mess up again. The Bucky from five years ago would've come up with some smooth line, but he was drawing a blank now.

"Yeah, whatever," the other man said, taking a book from one of the shelves and heading to Angie's desk.

Bucky distracted himself by going back to his book, until the man returned, this time standing right in front of Bucky. Bucky looked up, surprised and confused.

"Hey, uh," the man began, "Angie and Peggy said you're PDS too, so, well, sorry about earlier. Thought you were one of those living assholes who think people like us are abominations." He offered his hand. "I'm Steve."

Bucky took the proffered hand, still surprised at this turn of events. "Bucky," he said. Up close, Bucky noticed the small black studs in Steve's lower lip and his mind blanked out for half a second. "You know Peggy and Angie?" he asked, desperate to keep the conversation going.

Steve nodded. "Me and Peggy were together before...you know." He ran a hand through his hair. "Now she's one of my best friends." He smiled.

Disappointment welled up in Bucky. Of course this guy would be straight. And even if he wasn't, a mean voice in his head whispered, what was Bucky going to do? Nobody would want to be near him, except Wanda, but she was different.

"Whatcha reading?" Steve asked, filling the awkward silence that Bucky had left them with.

Bucky showed him the cover of the book.

"Any good?"

Bucky nodded. "It's about people who aren't treated as fully human," he offered by way of explanation. It wasn't particularly hard to see why he'd be drawn to this book, though he hadn't known what it was about before he picked it up. It just happened to be very relevant to his current situation.

Steve snorted. "I thought people read books to escape from reality, not relive it."

Bucky smiled. "Maybe it helps some people understand their reality." Bucky found comfort in knowing he wasn't alone in this. He found comfort in stories that he could relate to, even if the thing he related to was the pain those stories described. Wanda had called him a masochist for this exact reason before; she thought Bucky tortured himself by reading these things, but that was simply not how he experienced it. Finding these stories made him feel more alive.

"Maybe I should give that a try some time," Steve said, sounding genuinely interested. "Anyway, I gotta get goin'. See you around, Bucky."

\--------------------------

He spent the rest of the day thinking about Steve, even though he knew he shouldn't. There was no point in following those thoughts. Every time he tried to shut them out, he would think of those ridiculously big eyes again, or those almost-living lips. And every time that mean voice in his head cropped up again, telling him Steve would never be interested. Who in their right mind would want to be with Bucky? He was damaged goods, he knew that better than anyone.

Still, he hoped he would see Steve every time he went to the library. He spent even more afternoons there, barely taking in any words from whatever book he was reading and admonishing himself for his ridiculous behavior afterward. It wasn't until ten days later that his hope actually came true. Steve was in the same section of the library as before, fragile figure and pale skin unmistakably him. But now that Bucky was confronted with the real thing, he had no idea what to do. He tried to think of what he would've done _before_ : he would have gone up to Steve, probably use some terrible line on him and use his charm to cover up for it, maybe try to sweet-talk him a little.

But that Bucky was gone, left behind in that grave. Just as he was about to give up and make his exit, Steve noticed him.

"Hey!" Steve said, voice loud in the quiet of the library. Bucky turned around to face him and Steve offered him a smile. There were a couple of books in Steve's hands, though Bucky couldn't tell which ones as the covers were pressed to Steve's chest. "I read that book, you know. Pretty good," he said as he walked towards Bucky.

"Yeah?"

"Depressing, though."

Bucky shrugged. "It's honest," he countered. He still maintained that it was oddly comforting to read about these things, even if they didn't provide much of an escape from reality.

Steve looked at him, scrutinizing. Bucky waited for him to say something, but it was taking so long that he was just about to fill the silence, when Steve said, "Yeah, I suppose it is honest." He looked down at his watch. "I'm late for something," he said vaguely. "See you," he said as he walked towards Angie's desk to check out his books. Bucky had half a mind to follow him, but thought better of it. He wasn't a stalker. Besides, Steve must have realized what a mistake it was to talk to Bucky, considering how quickly he came up with an excuse to leave.

\--------------------------

It was such a strange interaction. Bucky was sure he must've done something wrong, but he couldn't figure out what it was. He barely even said anything. Or maybe that was the problem?

He berated himself for even caring this much. This was getting ridiculous. Why did he care what some random guy thought of him? He was being absolutely ridiculous. Yet, he had barely even finished that thought before he thought of those stupid studs in Steve's lip again, and his stupidly big eyes. Jesus, he was a lost cause.

He was almost glad to hear a knock on his door, until he remembered that he absolutely did not feel like interacting with anyone. Wanda had never once cared about that. As soon as Bucky opened the door, she waltzed right in, not giving Bucky a chance to block her. Not that he would. The one person whose company he could stand was currently in his apartment.

"So," she began, "what are you up to?"

It was a perfunctory question; they both knew Bucky didn't do much. He just shrugged in response.

She squinted at him. "You've been away a lot." If it wasn't for the smile that was playing around her lips, it would've sounded like an accusation.

Bucky avoided her eyes. "Been goin' to the library a lot."

He honestly should've known better. Sometimes he felt like Wanda could read his mind. "How come?" she prompted.

"No reason." He still avoided looking at her.

She sighed, smiling. "You know you're a shitty liar, right?" she asked. "There's something else." Suddenly, she frowned. "Did something bad happen?" Her tone had shifted completely, from amused to concerned.

Bucky shook his head. "No, Jesus, I'm fine." He might as well tell her about Steve. She would be like a dog with a bone now that she knew _something_ was up. And besides, he did actually like and trust Wanda. She wouldn't make fun of him. Maybe she'd even be able to talk him out of his stupid infatuation, distract him with other things until he forgot about that stupidly beautiful face.

"There was a guy at the library a few weeks ago," he began. He realized he wasn't sure how to continue without making himself look like an idiot and a bit of a stalker besides.

"What kind of guy?" Wanda asked.

"He was PDS." He struggled and failed to find the words to describe the angelic features, the way they momentarily shocked him the first time he saw them.

"You got a crush." It wasn't a question, nor was it said with malice. She was just sharing her observation.

"No, it's just - I don't know." He knew practically nothing about this guy, other than his first name and the fact that he refused to wear contacts or makeup.

"What's his name?"

"Steve," Bucky answered. "I don't really know anything about him. He's might be some kind of radical, I think. Doesn't cover up."

Wanda's eyes went wide. "You mean Steve Rogers? Blond hair, small, pierced lip?"

Bucky didn't actually know Steve's last name, but the rest of the description certainly fit. "I think so?" Just his luck that Wanda would know him. Now there was no chance of her trying to distract him; she'd be setting them up later today if she had her way. "You know him?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "He's a PDS rights activist, I see him all the time at these meetings over at the Brooklyn Pride Center. I think he's really involved."

Bucky felt a spark of hope knowing that Steve spent a lot of time at the Pride Center. At least, until he remembered that, in the wake of rehabilitation, it had become a safe haven for PDS sufferers and queer people alike. Bucky had never gone to one of their meetings.

"There's a meeting tomorrow night," Wanda said softly. "You could join me."

It wasn't the first time she asked. When they first met, she asked him, and he politely declined, making up some excuse, as if he was ever busy. As they got to know each other better and she kept asking him to join, he explained he had zero interest in going. He didn't see the point of it. More than that, he was almost offended by the way some PDS sufferers insisted on taking pride in their identity. It didn't seem to matter to them that they killed people, ate them. It made no difference to Bucky that it happened in their untreated state. What they did was unforgivable. 

They were a perversity, they shouldn't even exist. There was no pride in that, no grace. He had good reasons for hiding the way he did. He didn't feel it was right to confront the living with the things they did before they became medicated.

And yet, despite all of this, he still felt attracted to Steve, who seemed to represent everything Bucky was against. He hated himself for even considering going to a meeting just so he'd have an excuse to see Steve again.

"I'm not just saying this because of Steve. It might be good for you to go to a meeting," Wanda suggested gently. She'd tried this line of reasoning before, to no effect. 

Bucky scoffed.

"It's not about being proud of what we did. I know you think that, but it's about accepting -"

"Accepting that we killed people?" Bucky spat back, harsher than he'd intended. He knew Wanda meant well.

Wanda shook her head. "Accepting that we can't change what happened. You know as well as I do that we weren't ourselves. We wouldn't kill otherwise." She paused, biting her lip. "I know you feel guilty about what happened, but you have to know it wasn't your fault."

Anger welled up inside him. "You don't get to decide how I'm supposed to feel about it. You don't know shit about it," he said, his voice getting louder with every word. He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

"So, what, you're going to live like this for the rest of your life? Never actually talking to anyone and pining from a distance?" Wanda didn't raise her voice, but the words cut through Bucky all the same.

"I talk to you," Bucky said in a small voice.

"Yeah, maybe don't yell at your only friend when she tries to help you." She took Bucky's hand. "You were right, I don't know how you feel. But I do know that this isn't healthy. And I know that Steve is a good guy. Just come with me to one meeting, try it out. If you hate it, I'll stop bugging you."

"Fine," Bucky finally relented.

\--------------------------

The following night, they walked over to the community center together. Bucky was more anxious than he'd like to admit. He wasn't even sure what he was anxious about; the whole thing stressed him out.

The Pride Center wasn't particularly big. Bucky suspected they didn't get much funding or donations, being as pro-PDS as they were. Some chairs had been arranged to face a lectern, tables off to the side with drinks and snacks. Bucky wondered which smartass came up with the idea of preparing food for the undead, until he remembered that this wasn't just a place for PDS sufferers.

The group was not that big either, so it wasn't hard to spot Steve on the other side of the room. Steve hadn't seen him yet, too engrossed in his conversation with a redheaded woman and a kind-faced man who was clearly PDS - like Steve, he wasn't wearing contacts or makeup. The man caught him staring and Bucky quickly averted his eyes. Wanda led them to a couple of seats towards the side of the room. Bucky's leg started bouncing as soon as he sat down.

The meeting was pretty informal, people sharing stories and experiences about their lives as PDS sufferers. The way people would avert their eyes, the way they would recoil when they realized you were PDS, the way they treated you as second-class citizens, how lonely it could be. The man Steve was talking to earlier led the meeting, throwing in some advice here and there.

Bucky could relate to these experiences - he experienced them often enough - though he still wasn't entirely convinced of the concept behind these meetings. Especially when the discussion turned more political, he felt himself shrinking in his seat. Steve was particularly fiery in his arguments: the government had no right to force us to do poorly paid labor, he said. Bucky saw it more like repaying a debt, helping to rebuild the communities they destroyed during the Rising.

Steve had spotted Bucky in the audience when he stood up to speak, giving Bucky a surprised smile. As soon as the meeting ended, Steve walked towards him and Wanda.

"Hey Steve!" Wanda greeted him.

"Hey! I didn't know you knew Wanda," Steve said to Bucky.

"He lives next door to me," Wanda said, gently nudging Bucky a little closer to Steve. She made some excuse about wanting to talk to someone else and left him alone with Steve. Bucky hated her a little.

"Is this your first meeting?"

Bucky nodded. "Wanda dragged me along."

Steve laughed. "She had to drag you? That bad, huh?"

Bucky shrugged. "Not really my thing, 's all."

Steve cocked his head, gave him a crooked smile. "Anything I can do to change your mind?"

Bucky suddenly felt hyper-conscious of the baggy sweater he was wearing, the holes in his skinny jeans, his scuffed sneakers. He dressed to be comfortable, but now he realized how much he looked like a total slob. He hated that he cared about what Steve would think of the way he looked. He shrugged, as if that answered Steve's question.

Just then, the man who led the meeting and the red-headed woman came up to them. "Hey, I haven't seen you around before," the man said. "I'm Sam." He held out his hand. "This is Natasha," he said, gesturing to the woman next to him. She smiled at him.

"Bucky," he said, shaking both their hands.

"So, what did you think of the meeting?" Sam asked.

Steve snorted. "We were just talking about that."

"Don't let Steve scare you off, alright? He gets fired up sometimes and there's no stopping him when he does." Sam grinned at Steve as he said it.

"Yeah, I noticed," Bucky said dryly. 

"Wow," Steve said, mock-offended.

"You know it's true," Natasha said. Bucky wasn't sure if she was PDS; if she was, she was wearing makeup and contacts. She was holding Sam's hand; they must be together, Bucky concluded. If she wasn't PDS, she wasn't the only living person here, but she was certainly outnumbered. Besides, Bucky didn't think he'd ever seen a living-PDS couple before in person. He felt it would be rude to ask if she was PDS though, so he didn't.

"Okay, are we done ribbing on me now?" Steve grumbled.

"Never," Sam and Natasha said in unison. Natasha walked over to the table on the side to grab a cup of coffee. Not PDS then. Turning to Bucky, Sam asked, "Do you think you want to attend another meeting?"

Bucky shrugged. "I'm not sure." It was an honest answer. The meeting wasn't as horrible as he thought it would be, but he was still uncomfortable.

"That's okay, man," Sam said as Natasha rejoined him. "Just know that there's no pressure to share. Everyone gets something else out of these meetings. Some people just come to listen, and Steve comes to rant about social justice. There's no one way to be, alright?"

Bucky nodded. It was good to know that they would place no expectations on him. He wasn't about to share his life in a group session. Admittedly, it was nice to hear about other people's experiences and realize that he wasn't the only one struggling. "I'll think about it," he promised.

Sam thanked him for coming before he and Natasha moved on to some other people who attended the meeting, leaving him alone with Steve again.

"I should get goin'," Bucky said, looking around to find Wanda. He was tired and he just wanted to go home.

"Okay." Steve was worrying his lip. As Bucky began to turn around, he reached out to touch Bucky's arm. "I hope to see you again, Bucky," he said, giving him a soft smile.

\--------------------------

Bucky had expected Wanda to badger him with questions about Steve, but she didn't. They talked about the meeting for a bit, and when she asked him if he would go back, he told her what he'd told Sam and Steve. He just really wasn't sure how he felt. Sam had been extremely welcoming though, and the whole thing was far less intimidating than he'd expected. And he'd be lying if he said it wasn't nice to see Steve again. Even if his outspoken political beliefs made Bucky a little uneasy, there was something beautiful about seeing him so riled up, so passionate about something he absolutely and unfalteringly seemed to believe in.

The following week, he found himself joining Wanda again. Steve beamed at him when he saw him walk in and Natasha gave him an approving look. Like last time, Sam led the meeting, while Bucky just sat and listened. Sam talked a little about the meaning of forgiveness and acceptance; that they could acknowledge that what happened was horrible, but that there was no point in holding a grudge, especially not towards yourself. Bucky shifted uneasily at Sam's words, his leg bouncing again. Wanda gently took his hand in hers, squeezing a little to let him know she was right there.

When Sam opened up the floor, Wanda stood up. She talked about the street harassment she had to endure whenever she decided not to wear makeup or contacts. She talked about how people called her names, commented on her appearance, telling her to cover up, and how they bumped into her on purpose, or else gave her such a wide berth as they walked around her as if they thought she carried some horribly infectious disease. She talked about how angry and powerless it made her feel to know that public space wasn't made for people like her and how the living spent so much of their time reminding her of this fact.

As she talked, Bucky saw a lot of attendees, particularly the women in the room, nod in agreement. Bucky expected Steve to go off on another rant, but he remained seated. When a woman named Jessica brought up some plans to create more media attention around this problem, he did voice his support, but still remained otherwise silent.

When the meeting wrapped up, Steve walked up to him. Wanda had gone over to the woman who had suggested taking action, presumably to discuss their plans. "So, guess I didn't scare you off after all?" Steve asked.

"Guess not," Bucky replied, smiling. He looked over to Wanda, engaged in an animated discussion. "I thought you'd rant about what Wanda said."

"I'm not _that_ predictable." Steve smiled. "It just wasn't my place," he shrugged. "The living don't bother me as much. Almost everyone here has it much worse. The women here get harassed almost daily. Sam and Natasha deal with this shit every day. When he's covered up, they get dirty looks because they're interracial; when he's not, they get shit because they assume they're both PDS _and_ they're interracial; and when they realize Natasha is living, they get shit because they're interracial _and_ a living-PDS couple. The occasional comment I get is nothing compared to that. I shouldn't be the one to take action when I probably won't be the one to carry the consequences if those actions backfire."

"Are we talking about me?" Natasha asked, coming to stand next to Steve.

"Bucky asked about the harassment thing," Steve said.

Natasha nodded in understanding. "Ah yes, the joys of having strangers come up to you and tell you you can do better, or asking you if you aren’t heartbroken that you can't have babies with this guy."

Bucky raised his eyebrows. "They ask you that?"

Natasha nodded. "People are obsessed with that shit. Even when he's covered up and they think we're both living, sometimes I get asked if it doesn't upset me that our children will be darker than me."

"Jesus." He had never had to deal with those kinds of things, except at work, where he was publicly declared to be PDS. But even then, it was nothing like what Natasha described. In that way, his experience was much closer to Steve's. He just had to deal with the occasional comment or glare, or people treated him like he was invisible.

She shrugged. "It's fine. I just give them my best death glare, that usually shuts them up pretty quickly."

"And it helps that Sam is the most well-adjusted person I've ever met," Steve said.

"That too," Natasha grinned.

Bucky noticed that Sam had joined Wanda and the other woman, Jessica. They were still deep in their discussion, it seemed.

"So, what do you do, Bucky?" Natasha asked, turning the conversation towards something a little lighter.

"Uhh, well, I'm a warehouse employee now."

Steve raised his eyebrows. "And when you're not providing cheap labor for our shitty government?"

Bucky shrugged. He didn't do much outside of his job, but he didn't want to say that out loud. It would sound pathetic. "What about you?" he asked, deflecting.

Thankfully, Steve went along with it. "I'm an artist. Or well, I try to be. Not really selling much."

"What kind of art?" Of course Steve would be the artsy type. He should have known.

"Portraits, mostly," he answered.

He briefly had a mental image of Steve doing a portrait of him, before berating himself for his ridiculous ideas. He barely knew anything about Steve. Besides, he still didn't agree with many of Steve’s ideas. "Sounds cool," he said, wishing he could've come up with a better response. It was only then that Bucky noticed that Natasha had left them to speak to someone else. He'd been so focused on Steve that he hadn't even registered it.

The conversation froze for a moment, until Steve picked it up again. "I'm glad you decided to come back." Bucky would've thought he was just saying it to be polite, if he hadn't sounded so incredibly sincere. In fact, everything Steve said was said with absolute conviction. There was something appealing about someone who was that honest.

"Yeah? Why's that?" Bucky asked.

Steve smiled at him. "It's just nice to see you again. Besides, kinda hard to carry on a conversation in a library," he said.

A warm feeling settled in Bucky at Steve's words. Steve wanted to see him. There could be something here and he wanted to pursue this, but in the back of his mind, a voice told him, "Look at what happened last time." He couldn't go through that, not again. And even if Steve wasn't like that, there was no way he'd still be interested when he found out just how fucked up Bucky was. It was safer to just leave things as they were.

He made up some excuse about having to go, leaving Steve looking disappointed.

\--------------------------

This time, Wanda did ask him what happened. "I thought you guys were having a nice conversation?" she said, clearly confused. Apparently she'd been keeping an eye on Bucky while talking to Jessica and Sam.

"What's the point?" Bucky responded dejectedly. He sank down in his chair, kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

Wanda sighed. "The point is that you like him and I'm pretty sure he likes you too and it might be nice to have someone else in your life." Wanda moved his legs, sitting on the coffee table, right in front of him. "I know you're lonely, so don't even try to deny it. Why won't you give this a shot?"

Bucky avoided her gaze. "What if it's like last time?" he said in a small voice. He hadn't told her everything that happened, but she knew enough to know what he was talking about.

She put her hand on his knee. "Hey, look at me," she said. "It won't be. Steve's not like that. And if he is, I will personally kick his ass," she promised.

He suspected she was right. Steve seemed like a genuinely decent person, someone who fought for what he believed in, who always spoke sincerely. He wished his life could be easier, that he could just pursue this thing with Steve without being weighed down by everything that happened to him. 


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky kept going to meetings, getting a little more comfortable every time. He still didn't feel comfortable enough to speak up, but Wanda assured him that was fine. Seeing Steve get riled up about some issue or another was swiftly becoming one of his favorite things to witness. Even if he disagreed with Steve, there was something so _alive_ about the way Steve cared. He imagined that if Steve got any more worked up, he'd get his blood flowing again.

After every meeting, he would end up talking to Steve, sometimes with others present, sometimes just the two of them. He found out that Steve lived with his mother in a small apartment. Steve had a sad look in his eyes when he talked about her, so Bucky didn't ask any further. Steve worked only a few blocks from the restaurant where Bucky worked, at a supermarket. He'd been reprimanded for not wearing his contacts and makeup more than once. Part of the law was that they weren't supposed to scare people and they had to try to blend in as much as possible. The government couldn't force them to cover up in their private lives, but part of the deal was that they had to cover up while at work. Bucky had never even considered violating that rule, but Steve tried to get away with it as much as he could.

"It's bullshit," he said. "I'm always in the storeroom, I don't even see any customers." He huffed in anger. "And then there's this bullshit about scaring the public. This is what we look like, why should we have to hide that? It's just scare tactics so they can keep bullying us."

Steve's words made sense, but there was still something nagging at Bucky’s conscience. "A lot of them have reasons to be scared," Bucky argued.

"Look, I'm not saying they should be fine with what we did. _I'm_ not fine with what we did. But we can't change that, and it's ridiculous that our government thinks it can determine what we should wear or what we should look like. This whole integration thing would be a lot easier if everyone wasn't scared of us. Forcing us to cover up just ensures that people stay scared."

He had a point. The public's acceptance was directly dependent on how well you managed to pass as living. There was no real integration; only forced assimilation. "I guess," he conceded.

Steve smiled smugly. Bucky wanted to wipe that smile off his face. Preferably by kissing him.

\--------------------------

Bucky enjoyed going to the meetings more and more. Wanda was visibly happy that he was going out more often and she'd give him conspiratorial smiles every time he talked to Steve, which Bucky found both ridiculous and adorable. The meetings had quickly become the highlight of his week, not in the least because of Steve. Peggy also came to one of the meetings, which surprised Bucky, though nobody else seemed to be surprised. He guessed she was a regular visitor.

"Bucky!" she exclaimed when she saw him as he walked in. She'd been talking to Steve, who also greeted him. "I don't think I've ever seen you here before?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I haven't been coming here for very long," he explained. "I didn't know you went to PDS meetings?"

"Steve is very convincing," she said, nudging him playfully. "He dragged me over here back when this was just an LGBT community center. I think it was our second date, wasn't it?" she asked Steve.

Bucky felt a wave of jealousy. He reminded himself that Peggy had moved on; she was with Angie now. Besides, he told himself, if Steve took Peggy here before the Rising, odds were Steve wasn't straight. His odds had improved a little, at least.

"Third date," he corrected her. "And I didn't drag you here, I gently suggested you come along to a meeting."

Peggy huffed. "Darling, I don't think you've ever gently suggested anything in your life." Steve rolled his eyes at her. "Anyway, to answer your question, Bucky, I kept coming here and when rehabilitation started and the center started picking up on PDS issues, it just made sense to be involved in that too."

The way she said it, she made it seem so natural, like supporting PDS issues was the only logical thing to do. Bucky wondered if she hadn't lost anyone in the Rising, why she was so quick to be forgiving and understanding. He didn't understand how anyone could get over the pain and suffering that they had inflicted so easily. In his experience, it wasn't easy. In fact, it was impossible.

He tried to focus on Steve and Peggy's conversation, but he kept going back to that train of thought, until Sam announced the meeting was starting and he took a seat.

He hadn't been able to focus on what was said much. Sam came up to him afterward. He'd been talking to Sam quite a bit, who was very committed to getting to know everyone who came to the meetings. He didn't comment on Bucky's distractedness, so maybe he hadn't noticed. Instead, he carefully broached the subject of Bucky's arm by asking him if he'd served.

Bucky nodded. "Afghanistan. Special ops," he said.

"Huh. Me too," Sam said.

Bucky raised his eyebrows. "Is that where you...you know?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I was about to get out, just had a couple months left. But the mission went south, obviously." He didn't seem too bothered by it anymore. Steve wasn't kidding when he said Sam was well-adjusted. "How about you?"

"Yeah. I'd been out there for almost a year. IED blew up our convoy." He looked down at his missing arm. "At least I didn't feel that. Or I don't remember it, anyway."

"Probably for the best," Sam said gently. "You know, I wanted to work at the VA when I came back," he said, changing the topic. "There are a lot of people like us, veterans, who came back. They weren't interested though. Didn't see the importance of including PDS sufferers and they certainly didn't want to employ one. Natasha pointed me to this place. We don't get too many vets, but at least I'm helping people."

"You knew Natasha before?" Bucky asked. He was curious about their relationship, though he didn't want to pry.

"Yeah, we got together in Afghanistan." He smiled, apparently fond of the memories it triggered.

"She waited for you?"

Sam snorted. "Natasha waits for no man. Nah, it was just good timing. She wasn't seeing anyone when I came back and it made sense to at least try again."

Bucky wondered how they made it work and how long it took Natasha to get used to Sam being PDS. It seemed rude to question their relationship though, especially considering what Natasha had told him before about how many invasive questions and comments she got. "I'm glad you guys found each other again," Bucky said, and he meant it. He might not fully understand their relationship, but they certainly seemed happy together.

"Yeah, me too," Sam agreed.

\--------------------------

His job was still soul-crushingly boring. He often found Steve's voice echoing in his head, talking about how this was exploitation, that they didn't deserve to be treated this way. Sometimes he resented Steve for putting those thoughts in his head. It was harder to ignore the reality of his situation when Steve's passionate rants were always at the forefront of his mind. But at the same time, he felt more alive than he had in years. He didn't want to feel angry, but at least he was feeling _something_.

The library was still very much a sanctuary to him. He was genuinely beginning to enjoy going to the meetings, but there was something specific and unique about the library that made him feel calm. At home he often felt restless; a constant reminder of how empty his life was. And the meetings, though helpful, could still sometimes be a little anxiety-inducing, even if he did go voluntarily.

Angie was sitting at her desk when Bucky entered the library, as per usual. Peggy wasn't with her this time; she must have been at work. "Hey Bucky!" Angie said cheerfully as he passed her desk. "Peggy told me she saw you at a meeting at the Pride Center. I wanted to come too, but I had an evening class." She had said something before about taking acting classes at night; he was glad to hear she was still pursuing her passion for acting. She sounded genuinely upset that she couldn't make it, though.

"Yeah, I didn't expect to see Peggy there, either," Bucky said.

"I know, not many living go to these meetings." She averted her eyes for a moment. "I mean, I guess I probably wouldn't have gone to one either, if it hadn't been for Steve and Peggy," she admitted.

He found it hard to believe that she was apologetic about not being so involved with PDS issues. Of course the living kept their distance, it only made sense to Bucky. "I understand," he said. He was curious about Steve and Peggy, especially now that she had brought it up, but he was afraid to ask. He didn't want to be rude.

Angie must have sensed his curiosity, or else she was just eager to tell him more because she continued, "Peggy and I met there, you know."

Bucky raised his eyebrows in question.

"Not at a PDS meeting, I mean. It was a queer book club thing," she clarified. "I was sold the moment she started talking and I heard that accent," she said, grinning. "Anyway, when Steve was rehabilitated, it only made sense that we would be involved in PDS issues as well.

Bucky frowned. "Wasn't that strange?" He felt it was okay to ask, since she had been the one to breach the subject in the first place.

She shrugged. "A little. I mean, we certainly didn't expect any of this to happen, but who did? We met when she was still grieving for him, before the Rising. When he came back...it was hard, for sure. I can't imagine what Peggy must have felt then. But she had moved on from him," Angie said carefully. "Steve understood, so I think it helped that we were all more or less on the same page. It was hard for both of them, but I think we got through it okay."

It was impressive to hear her talk about it so matter-of-factly. "What about you, though?" he asked. It hadn't escaped his notice that she only talked about the pain Steve and Peggy must have felt, but surely it was a difficult and insecure period in her life, too.

She smiled. "I mean, I wasn't thrilled at first. It's not like there’s a self-help book on how to deal with your partner's ex coming back from the dead." She laughed at her own joke. "Although, by now, maybe someone has written a guidebook." Bucky snorted. "But there was no point in being jealous, so I set those feelings aside. I knew how important they were for each other. If I hadn't wanted to deal with that, I wouldn't have started dating her while she was still grieving. I mean, I obviously ended up having to deal with it a little more head-on than I'd expected, but I went into this knowing how she felt about Steve and that he'd be a part of her life one way or another, Rising or not."

Bucky was looking at her in amazement. It must have been rare to find someone so willing to accept that kind of baggage. "Peggy is lucky to have you," he said, still in awe.

She gave him a bright smile. "That's really sweet of you to say, Bucky." Her eyes were gleaming. "Anyway, a little birdie told me there's something going on between you and Steve?"

If there was one upside to this whole being undead thing, it was definitely the fact that he couldn't blush anymore. "Huh?" he responded eloquently.

She grinned. "Steve kind of has a thing for you," she said conspiratorially. She clasped her hands over her mouth in an over-dramatic gesture. "Oops, was I not supposed to tell you about that? Oh well, cat's outta the bag now." She gave him a ridiculous wink. Bucky began to stammer a response, but she interrupted him. "Don't tell Peggy or Steve that I told you. But what can I say, I'm a romantic at heart and I can't just pass up the opportunity to play match-maker, now can I?"

Bucky would be lying if he said he wasn't excited at this piece of news. He wasn't sure what he was going to do about it, but he felt warm knowing that Steve was at least interested. "Thanks Angie," he said, unsure of what else to say. He wasn't going to make any promises about pursuing Steve when he wasn't sure he could keep those promises.

"Sure thing, sweetie," Angie said.

She left him to his books for the rest of the afternoon, but he couldn't shake her words from his mind. He actually had a chance with Steve.

\--------------------------

The following Thursday, he went to the Pride center by himself for the first time. Wanda had been called in to work unexpectedly. Usually she had Thursday nights off, but this time she had to sub for a sick coworker. Of course the first person they called was one of their PDS employees, knowing they'd have a much harder time to refuse. He wasn't too thrilled at the idea of going alone, but then, he knew the meetings and the people who attended them well enough to be reasonably sure nothing bad was going to happen. Besides, he was a grown man, he'd served in a war, surely he could handle this.

He was running a little late - Wanda was the more punctual one out of the two of them - and he arrived only just before the meeting started. He took his regular seat near the side of the room. Steve waved at him when he spotted Bucky. Instead of giving a talk first, Sam opened up the floor almost immediately today. A man whose name Bucky had forgotten stood up and started talking about guilt. Bucky shifted in his seat uneasily. The man described how he'd killed someone from his neighborhood, someone he'd always liked. Bucky's throat tightened. Black spots danced in front of his eyes. The man talked about having to face his neighbors later, after he was rehabilitated. Bucky felt like he was going to throw up, black bile rising in his throat. Had it been possible, he would have been sweating buckets by now. He had to get out of this room, away from that man and his guilt.

He got up, stumbling over some of the chairs in his haste to get out of there, rushing out of the hall and into the men's restroom. The restroom was empty; one of the advantages of being in the company of PDS sufferers. He opened one of the stalls and leaned over the toilet, heaving, though nothing would come. He was glad for it. He'd thrown up black bile before and it burned his throat and left a horrible taste in his mouth.

He walked over to the sink, throwing water in his face. He knew it was pointless, he could barely even feel the water, but it made him feel slightly better anyway. He leaned against the wall for a moment before sliding down the tiles, his knees drawing up as he sat down, arm wrapped around himself. What a stupid idea to come here alone. He should've known not to come.

He tried to shut out the images flashing through his brain, but he kept seeing those cracked skulls, the blood, those fearful and angry eyes, the gun pointed at him. He rocked back and forth, as if to shake the memories from himself.

The door opened slowly. "Bucky?" Steve asked. He came in, cautiously walking towards Bucky. "Can I help?"

Bucky looked up, surprised to see Steve. He shook his head.

Steve's brow furrowed. "Okay if I sit here?" He motioned to a spot next to Bucky.

Bucky nodded. He didn't think he wanted company, but now that Steve was here, he didn't want him to leave.

Steve sat down, close but careful not to touch Bucky. He waited until Bucky's breathing calmed down a little before he spoke again. "It's always hard to hear those stories." He ran his hand through his hair. "We all carry guilt."

"Not like this," Bucky mumbled, mouth half-covered by his arm as his face rested on his knees.

"What was that?" Steve asked.

"Never mind."

"None of us are saints here, Bucky," Steve said gently.

Bucky scoffed, but immediately regretted it. Steve was just trying to be nice. "I don't want to talk about it." He couldn't talk about it, hadn't really done so since his mandatory therapy sessions back at the treatment center, the one exception being Wanda and even she only vaguely knew what had happened.

Steve nodded in understanding. "That's okay. But if you do want to, I promise nobody's gonna judge you."

"I seriously doubt that," Bucky said. It was easy for Steve to make those promises when he had no idea what Bucky had done. There was no forgiveness for him.

Steve frowned again. He bit his lip, visibly mulling over his words. He reached out slowly to touch Bucky's face, turning his face towards him. "You're not a monster, Bucky." There was a fire in his eyes and Bucky found it hard to look at, yet even harder to look away. They sat in silence for a while - Bucky wasn't sure how long - until he eventually told Steve he wanted to go home. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire chapter is a flashback and it's pretty gruesome. Warnings for gore, minor character deaths, and graphic descriptions of violence. If you need more details, please don't hesitate to [message me](http://hufflepuffbuckybarnes.tumblr.com/ask).

_2012_

The air was stifling, damp, old. It was so dark that he wasn't sure if he had even opened his eyes. He needed to get out. He slammed against the wood that surrounded him until it gave way. An avalanche of earth came down on him as soon as the lid cracked, but that didn't stop him. He crawled to the surface through the mud and the dirt. It didn't matter that he couldn't breathe. Finally, he reached the surface. The fresh air hit him instantly, a clear, crisp smell filling his nostrils. He crawled out of the tunnel he had dug with his bare hand and looked around. He wasn't alone. All around him were people disturbing their own headstones. He heard someone banging on a tomb slab, desperately trying to dislodge it.

He wasn't sure where he was. Still, he felt a singular purpose: satisfy his hunger. Nothing else mattered right now. Scanning the burial grounds, he had to decide which way to go. Something told him to head toward a towering building, visible in the distance. It felt familiar, somehow.

It was raining, but he couldn't feel the drops on his face. He couldn't feel the cold wind whipping around him. He barely felt the others bumping into him on their way downtown. He was slow; much slower than he liked. He kept losing his balance, his left leg dragging behind him slightly as he walked.

All he could think of was the nagging feeling of hunger that was becoming more insistent by the minute. As he made his way out of the graveyard, the most delicious smell wafted towards him. His stomach rumbled, his mouth started watering. He needed this, whatever it was.

A young man looked at him, eyes wide, a scream trapped in the man's throat. Bucky slammed his head down on the pavement until the man's skull cracked, his brains oozing out. Finally, he had what he wanted. He brought his blood and brain-covered hand to his lips and he instantly needed more. A sense of euphoria overcame him as he ate more and more, until others joined him and he had to fight for what was rightfully his. He pushed them away as best he could, unwilling to share this treat.

When he had had his fill, he continued his path to the tall building. It still seemed far away, but at least his hunger was somewhat satisfied, for now. There was no immediate rush. Around him, he heard screams, but he ignored them. Others could have their meal now; he wouldn't disturb them.

By the time he got close to the building, the sun was creeping at the edges of the horizon. The streets began to fill with cars and people mulling about. He wasn't as hungry as he had been before, but the smell was too overwhelming to ignore. Besides, it was too easy. People seemed to freeze in their tracks as they spotted him and the others like him, slowly creeping towards them. How could he resist such easy prey?

For some time, he was distracted by the high induced by eating. He seemed to be floating for a while, detached from the world. He felt powerful.

Eventually, his feet carried him forwards into the building that had been his destination all along. When he had entered the building, a sharp intake of breath came from his left - a woman standing on the other side of the wide hall, eyes wide. "Bucky?" she said. It didn't mean anything to him. He carried on, undisturbed. He knew where he wanted to go, even if he didn't know why. He found the stairs, though it took some effort to climb them. His excitement propelled him forward faster as he got closer. He continued on into a hallway, stopped in front of number 402, banged on the door. His hunger had returned by now. He was desperate to get in, could smell the people on the other side of the door.

A man opened the door. He had a long, thin face, short white hair and a white mustache. "Bucky?" he said. There was that word again. "How...what happened?"

The question didn't register with him. He was just hungry and there was a perfectly good meal standing in front of him. He forced his way into the apartment hall and tackled the man, slamming his head against the floorboards repeatedly. A blond woman came rushing in from one of the other rooms at the sound. She screamed as her eyes landed on the sight of her husband lying motionless on the floor, blood and brain tissue seeping out of his skull. Then her eyes locked onto him. Her face went from elated, to confused, to scared as she took in his figure. He advanced on her. He pushed her, hard. She hit her head on the wall, a sickening crack resounding in the enclosed space of the narrow hall.

Before he could finally assuage his hunger, another figure ran into the hall. He was much younger than the couple lying on the floor. His face went through the same emotions as his mother's as he saw the disheveled man sitting next to his parents' bodies. He raised his right arm, gun in his shaking hand, tears in his eyes. "Get the fuck out of here," the man said. His voice was trembling. He fired a shot dangerously close to his head.

He got up as fast as he could, stumbling out of the hallway towards the staircase, shots following him until the door to the staircase slammed shut behind him. He expected the man to follow him, but he was alone in the staircase and made his way out safely, though he was still hungry.

\--------------------------

Back in the apartment, Tony Stark tried to revive his mother, to no avail. He cradled her body, holding her as close as he could. Even when the police arrived, he wouldn't let her go. Two men had to drag him away from her. He put the apartment up for sale without ever going back. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this week I'm gonna do things a little differently. I've got a couple of Christmas chapters coming up and I want to post them before Christmas actually happens, of course. So! Tomorrow and Friday there will be two more updates, each with a Christmas-related chapter. Next week, the update will be on Wednesday again, as per usual :).
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Bucky should've known this couldn't have lasted. He'd been feeling okay lately, actually looking forward to the next meeting, giving him a reason to get out of bed in the mornings. The truth was that he was still a complete mess. None of his memories ever stayed buried, as much as he wanted them to. They'd find their way to the surface one way or another.

He stayed in bed the following morning. He had nowhere to be anyway. His shift didn't start until 5pm and though he couldn't skip work - there were severe consequences to missing too many shifts and he preferred to save what few days he had for the most dire of emergencies - he wished he could just stare at the ceiling all day. He'd slept terribly, nightmares disrupting his sleep continuously, so he wasn't particularly eager to go back to sleep either. He only got up when his alarm for his meds went off. The drugs had to be taken once a day, or they'd go rabid again.

It was a routine he had down so efficiently he barely had to think about it anymore. It hadn't always been that way. It had been difficult the first few months he had to do this. At the treatment center, someone had done it for him. It was mandatory, in fact. They couldn't risk someone going rabid in their facility. It wasn't until he'd been released that he had to learn how to do it himself. Nobody had told him how to go about it with his one arm. It didn't seem to have registered with them that it might be more difficult for him, or maybe they simply didn't care. Perhaps they'd expected he'd be going home to someone who would want to help him, but one look at his history would have told them differently. Either way, he'd had to figure it out for himself.

He'd fumbled so much those first few months that he'd wasted much more of the drugs than he should have. It had been humiliating, but he had managed anyway.

By now he had the routine down to perfection. He took his shirt off and put his hair in a messy bun - he hadn't mastered the art of making a graceful bun with just one hand, mostly because he didn't care enough to learn. This was just to get his hair out of the way. He clipped any stray strands to the back of his neck, so they wouldn't cover the small hole the meds were supposed to go in. He took the injection gun out of the drawer and held it steady between his knees. He inserted the vial in the gun and lifted the gun against the back of his neck, feeling around for the hole, finger off the trigger so as not to release the drugs too soon by mistake. He'd wasted more than a few doses that way. He felt the tip of the injection gun slide in slightly, so he knew it was in place. He braced himself and pulled the trigger. The drugs hit his system with a shock. He hadn't been prepared for that either the first time he did this to himself. At the treatment center, the nurse who administered the drugs always held onto his shoulder tightly, minimizing the impact. But when there was nobody told hold him back, he always swayed forward slightly, the impact knocking him off balance for a moment. He knew from experience that it was a bad idea to stand. After the first time, he always made sure to sit down for this.

As he felt the drugs settle in his system, he could almost hear Steve's voice talking about how it wasn't a coincidence that their meds were administered through something that had more than a passing resemblance to a gun. The government had them shooting themselves in the neck every single day of their lives, Steve had said. As if a simple injection couldn't have done the trick.

He put his shirt back on and laid back down in bed after stowing the injection gun safely in the bathroom drawer. He could feel his thoughts drifting again after a while, when he heard a knock on the door. He assumed it was Wanda; maybe Sam had told her about his meltdown. If that was the case, he'd confront Sam about it - it was _his_ business who to tell, not Sam's. He was already getting worked up about it, ready to tell both Sam and Wanda off, when he looked through the peep hole and saw Steve standing there, worrying his lip nervously.

Bucky opened the door, giving Steve a surprised look.

"Hey," Steve said. "I'm sorry if this is not okay, but I wanted to make sure you were alright after last night and I knew where Wanda lives, so I figured I'd just come to the building and see if I could find your apartment," he rambled. It was kind of endearing.

Steve looked at him with those big earnest eyes and Bucky couldn't find it in himself to be annoyed. Though he hadn't wanted to admit it, not even to himself up to this very moment, he had been scared of what Steve would think of him now. He'd been kind last night, but Bucky had been sure that his meltdown had blown his shot with Steve, that the first glimpse of how fucked up Bucky was would also be the last. Nobody would be interested in him until he got his shit together and that was a long way off.

But here Steve was, right in front of him, showing him that his kindness wasn't just out of politeness, as Bucky had previously assumed, but that he genuinely cared about how Bucky was doing. It left Bucky slightly baffled.

"Are you mad?" Steve asked, biting his lip again.

Bucky shook his head. "Just wasn't expecting to see you." Steve visibly sagged with relief. Bucky held the door open. "You want to come in?" It wasn't until Steve actually walked in that he realized his apartment wasn't exactly made for visitors. He looked down at himself, the old sweatpants and ratty shirt he was wearing. Real smooth, Barnes, he scolded himself. This will definitely convince him you're not a mess.

Steve stood in the middle of Bucky’s apartment awkwardly, looking at Bucky's solitary chair. Bucky motioned for him to sit; Bucky could sit on the floor. It wasn't like he could feel much of a difference between the soft cushions of the chair and the hardwood floors anyway.

"I didn't mean to put you on the spot or anything," Steve said, still a little uncomfortable. "I was just worried." He was picking at the worn fabric of the chair.

"I'm sorry," Bucky said.

Steve's eyebrows shot up. "Don't apologize!"

Bucky was about to say sorry again, but he caught himself just in time.

"It's okay to feel like shit sometimes. Nothing to be sorry for. Besides, if anyone should apologize, it's me. I didn't do much to help yesterday. I could've gone with you after the meeting, or something." He seemed angry with himself.

"I appreciated what you did," Bucky argued. He couldn't put into words how much it meant to him - he couldn't open up like that and be that vulnerable - but just having someone next to him had been enough to make him feel a little better. And having Steve in his apartment now made him feel warmer than he had in years.

Steve smiled at him. "That's good to hear." He ran a hand through his hair - it seemed to be a nervous tick of his. "Did you talk to Wanda about it?"

"About last night or in general?"

"Both, I guess," Steve replied.

Bucky took a deep breath. "I haven't seen her since yesterday afternoon. And she sort of knows what happened." He had let some vague comments slip in her presence, but she didn't know many details. In any case, he was sure she'd put some things together.

"I meant what I said yesterday, you know. You won't be judged, not by me anyway. And I doubt Wanda would."

He wanted to believe Steve so badly, but his experience told him otherwise. He couldn't trust anyone so easily. "Thanks," he said, not knowing what else to say. He didn't really want to go into this right now.

To his relief, Steve picked up on his reluctance, changing the topic with ease. "So how long have you been living here?" he asked.

Bucky briefly considered lying, pretending that he was still settling in as an explanation for why his apartment was so empty. But he couldn't lie to those sincere eyes regarding him so kindly. "About six months."

"I'm surprised Wanda hasn't forced a home makeover on you," he said light-heartedly. Steve wasn't ignoring how empty his apartment was, but he also didn't make a big deal out of it, for which Bucky was grateful.

Bucky snorted. "She's been trying since the day I moved in."

Steve laughed. It was a genuine laugh; his face became much softer and younger as he laughed. Bucky was so used to seeing him so serious, always caught up in one issue or another. He felt himself falling a little harder at the sight of this more carefree Steve. "Kudos for not giving in."

Bucky grinned. "Not sure how much longer I can hold her off and keep up this hobo vibe before she just breaks into my apartment and replaces everything."

"Just tell her you have an authentic aesthetic to maintain," Steve suggested.

Bucky had never seen Steve this relaxed. It was a revelation to think Bucky had made him laugh, that he really wanted to be here, that he actually listened to Bucky and understood when to change the topic. It was so different from the head-on, almost abrasive way Steve talked about PDS issues. He liked that Steve had this much softer side. It made his anger about PDS politics more targeted. He wasn't just the kind of person who was angry at the world and in their need to lash out, would take any excuse to kick against whatever target they could find. No, Steve's anger was specific. He wondered how and why Steve had developed such a strong sense of justice, but it might be a very personal question. He didn't know Steve well enough to ask about such personal things. And besides, if Bucky didn't want to share, why should he expect Steve to share any private details with him?

A beeping noise brought him out of his reverie. Steve looked at his phone. "Oh, shit," he said, alarmed. "I forgot to bring my meds, they're at home." He looked at his watch.

"You can use mine if you want?" Bucky heard himself say. Realistically, he knew Steve would have set the alarm so that he would have some extra time before reverting to his rabid state, so he'd have plenty of time to go back home and take his meds there. But Bucky didn't want him to leave.

Steve considered it for moment. "If it's not too much trouble, sure."

Bucky could hardly suppress his smile. He walked to the bathroom and pulled a vial and the injection gun out of the drawer. "You use the same type?" he asked, just to be sure. He handed Steve the small bottle.

Steve looked at the label and nodded. "Don't think it even really matters. My mom is a nurse and she said the components are the same in each one, they just pretend that there's a difference so that if we experience any side effects, they can give us a different drug."

Bucky frowned. "Why would they do that?"

"So they can pretend to give a shit about our health while spending nothing on research. As long as we don't go rabid, the drug works perfectly fine as far as they're concerned."

It was a disconcerting thought, but it didn't seem too far-fetched. Bucky knew better than most how little researchers and the government actually cared about their health and well-being. He couldn't deny that their primary concern had definitely always been to prevent them from going into a rabid state.

Bucky handed Steve the gun, but Steve didn't immediately take it.

"Could you do it?" he asked. "I mean, I can do it myself if you don't want to, but it's just easier when someone else does it." His eyes flickered briefly to the empty space where Bucky's left arm should be. "Do you do it yourself?" he asked carefully.

"Yeah," Bucky answered. "Took some practice, but I got it down now." It was born out of necessity; it wasn't like he'd had someone who would do this for him. By the time he met Wanda, who had offered to help him, he didn't really need help anymore. He took the vial from Steve. "I can do it."

"Thanks," Steve said, smiling up at him.

Bucky came to stand behind Steve and pulled down his shirt a little to expose the black hole on the back of his neck. It was strange seeing it from this perspective. He gingerly touched the skin around it. He couldn't feel it very acutely, but he imagined the skin felt soft. "Can you hold down the shirt for me?" he asked. He'd need his one hand to administer the drug. Steve nodded and his left hand pulled down his shirt so Bucky would have access. He placed the gun at Steve's neck, finger on the trigger. He understood more viscerally what Steve had meant when he talked about it resembling an actual gun. It felt almost violent to do this to someone else. It wasn't just that the machine looked like a gun, it was also the placement of the hole. It was reminiscent of an execution, the victim faceless as they faced away from their executioner.

"Ready?" he asked. Steve nodded again, so he pulled the trigger. Steve coughed violently as soon as the drug hit his system. He swayed in his seat, as if he was about to faint. Bucky caught him before he could fall forward out of the chair.

"Jesus, you okay?" he asked, concern lacing his voice.

Steve blinked hard a couple of times and took some deep breaths before he answered. "Been happening a lot lately."

Understanding dawned on Bucky. "That's why you knew about the different drugs."

Steve nodded. "My mom looked into getting me on a different drug, but she realized they're literally the same meds with a different name tacked on. And anyway, it's not that big a deal. It only happens right after I take it, other than that I'm fine." He gave Bucky a reassuring smile, though the overall effect was weakened by him coughing weakly again.

"Do you know if anyone else has these side effects?" Bucky asked, still worried.

"Not that I know of," Steve replied. "Haven't asked around much, though."

Bucky would've thought that Steve would use this as more proof that the system didn't care for them as human beings, that he would've brought it up at a meeting. "Why not?"

Steve shrugged and bit his lip. "Don't wanna give them a reason to send me back to the treatment center."

"You think they'd do that?" Bucky asked, shocked. The treatment center was a horrible place. They had been little more than prisoners during their stay.

"Maybe. There are stories of people who are sent back with the flimsiest of excuses. Always supposedly for the best of the PDS sufferer," he said bitterly. "So yeah, I'm not risking the wrong person overhearing."

Bucky nodded in understanding. He could certainly understand wanting to avoid going back to the treatment center.

He looked at his watch and realized it was much later than he thought. He must've spent a lot of time lying in bed, after all. "I have to get ready for work," he said. He wished he could just take the day off, but noncompliance with the terms of his release could be punished by being sent back to the treatment center. Steve wasn't wrong about the government using flimsy excuses to send people back.

Steve stood up. He seemed steady on his feet, but Bucky still felt compelled to ask if he could make it home okay.

"I'm fine, really," Steve said. "But thanks for asking." He walked to the door. "See you next Thursday?" He looked hopeful.

"Next Thursday," Bucky promised and Steve gave him a dazzling smile in response.

Bucky's heart soared. He didn't even care about his shitty job right then. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas time! Featuring ugly sweaters and some actual fluff, for once.

The next day, Wanda asked Bucky to come over for an old-fashioned movie night. "There won't be any snacks, obviously, but I have great taste in movies," she had said the first time she proposed this. It had clearly been a convincing sales pitch because Bucky had gone over to her apartment that night, even though he had been determined to avoid all contact with his neighbors. By now, it was something he looked forward to. Wanda had a gift for picking the right kinds of movies every time. She avoided any violent movies and usually went with some wacky comedy. It was always just what Bucky needed.

He settled on her couch comfortably. Her apartment was the polar opposite of Bucky's. Her personality shone through in every corner. She had put up a bunch of decorative prints on the walls, a guitar was standing in one corner, and you couldn't look anywhere without spotting a plant. The whole space felt open and light. Bucky always felt better in her apartment. Rationally, he knew he could make his apartment a nicer space to live in as well - Wanda would gladly help - but for some reason he couldn't commit to making such a change to his interior design.

Wanda pulled up Netflix on the screen, but instead of selecting a movie straightaway, as she usually did, she looked at Bucky a little funny. "I saw Steve come out of your apartment yesterday," she said, not quite a question, but certainly expecting an explanation.

Bucky sighed. "Don't get any ideas," he said. He considered just leaving it at that, but it didn't feel right to hide this from Wanda, especially now that she had addressed it. "I had a bit of a freak out at the meeting. Steve came over to see if I was okay."

Immediately, her attitude shifted from just curious to concerned. "Oh no, what happened?"

"Some guy talked about someone he killed, someone he knew. A neighbor or something," he said in a flat voice.

Wanda pulled him into a tight hug. It felt strange, the sensations dulled. He could feel the pressure of her arms, though. "I'm sorry I wasn't there," she said, still holding him tightly.

"Not your fault," he reassured her. He patted her on the back awkwardly.

"So how are you now?" she asked, finally releasing him.

He shrugged. "Okay, I think."

"Steve helped?" she asked, a smile playing around her lips.

"Yeah, I guess. He was nice."

"And he came to your apartment," she pointed out helpfully.

Bucky knew what she was thinking, but he wasn't so sure. "Doesn't have to mean anything." She looked at him skeptically. "He's not gonna be so eager when he finds out what happened." Steve might think he's dealing with some average guilt, but he doesn't know the half of it. Who would stick around for all that?

Wanda sighed softly. "Maybe you should let him decide if he wants to get involved," she suggested kindly. "You can't make that decision for him. And so far, it looks like he wants to get involved."

She had a point, of course. Steve had done nothing to suggest that he would give up so easily. He didn't seem like much of a quitter anyway. In fact, he was probably the type of person who didn't know when to quit, Bucky thought. "Yeah, maybe," he acquiesced.

"I think he'd be really good for you," she said.

Bucky didn't respond to that. He didn't doubt that it was true. Everything he knew about Steve told him he was a caring person. The problem was that he wasn't remotely convinced that he'd be good for Steve in return.

Wanda, having taken the hint that the conversation had come to an end, selected a movie from the comedy section. Bucky wanted to focus on it, but by the end of the movie, he couldn't have said what it was about.

\--------------------------

It was getting colder with each passing day. Thought Bucky didn't feel much of it, he could see the way people’s breath misted in front of them every time he went outside, how people in the street were covered almost head to toe in warm fabrics.

He didn't miss not being able to feel the cold. He'd always disliked winter. Even when he was little, his mom would marvel at how cold his hands would get at even the slightest drop in temperature. The only thing he missed about winter was the hot cocoa his mom used to make for him. But then, that was something from a distant past.

The truth was, winter always made him feel nostalgic, which in turn made him sad. He longed for those early years of his life, when he'd had a family he took for granted, just like everyone else. The holidays forced him to remember everything he no longer had. He hadn't celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas since the Rising. Even before, he hadn't enjoyed those holidays. The Starks usually invited him, or else he'd spend it with whatever foster family he was living with at the time. It was never really the same. His foster families were passing strangers to him and the Starks, though certainly kind, only served to remind him that he was an outsider intruding on their family gatherings. They did nothing to make him feel that way - especially Maria had always gone out of her way to make Bucky feel welcome - but he still felt like he didn't quite belong. He had just wanted a family of his own.

What he hated most about these holiday seasons was that it was inescapable. He couldn't get away from the decorations and preparations and pictures of happy families. Maybe he wouldn't feel so shitty if the world wasn't so determined to rub into his face how much he was missing.

That Thursday, he went to the meeting, as he'd promised Steve. He was nervous - surely Steve hadn't been the only one who noticed how upset he got last week and he was worried how the others would respond now that he would face them again. But the more rational part of him told him that everyone had always been nothing but kind to him. He had no direct reason to fear their responses. So he told himself to calm down and just go. Besides, he'd have Wanda with him this time.

Sam approached him when he entered the room. "Hey Bucky," he said. "I wanted to apologize for what happened last week. I should have been more careful with these kinds of topics. Simon felt bad about it too, he asked me to apologize on his behalf since he couldn't make it today. We should've realized how upsetting these discussions can be."

This was certainly not what Bucky had been expecting. "You couldn't have known," Bucky said.

"Still, I should have known that not everyone would be okay with hearing this kind of stuff. We all deal with our guilt in different ways and what's good for one person, can be upsetting for someone else." He gave Bucky an encouraging smile. "I'm glad to see you didn't let it keep you from coming back, though."

Bucky smiled in return. If it hadn't been for Steve's visit to his apartment last Friday, he probably would've stayed at home this week. The fact that Steve didn't just _tell_ him it was okay to be upset, but took the effort to show him he cared by showing up at his apartment had done wonders for him. "Yeah, me too," he agreed.

Steve was evidently running a little late today. Usually, he was already there when Bucky arrived. He pretended not to be disappointed when he didn't see Steve. He took his regular seat, Wanda by his side, and Sam was about to announce that the meeting was starting when Steve walked in, looking a little haggard. He took a seat on Bucky's other side, much to Bucky's surprise.

"Hey," Steve whispered, "glad to see you made it." He squeezed Bucky's hand and Bucky suspected that if he still had a beating heart, it would've skipped a beat right then.

Wanda very deliberately did not look in their direction, though Bucky could sense how badly she wanted to.

Sam talked a little about the importance of having a community that will take care of its members when needed. The anxiety Bucky had felt when he left his apartment had faded like snow before the sun. He felt sheltered, sitting in between Wanda and Steve. He wasn't quite part of this community, not yet anyway, but he couldn't remember the last time he even had a shot at being part of a community.

When the meeting ended, Wanda did finally look over to them. "Thank you for last week, Steve," she said. She hugged him to express her gratitude.

"I was happy to do it," Steve replied. "That's what friends are for, right?" he added, turning to Bucky.

Wanda thanked him again before leaving them by themselves to go talk to Natasha.

"Thanks again for coming by last week," Bucky said. It felt a little redundant after Wanda said it as well, but he needed Steve to understand how much he appreciated it.

"Any time, Buck."

The nickname made him feel all warm and fuzzy. It sounded right in Steve's mouth.

"I don't know if Sam told you yet, but there's no regular meeting next week because of Christmas. We usually have this small pre-Christmas party, nothing fancy, just a get-together type thing," Steve said. He was fidgeting with the edge of his over-sized sweater. The sleeves were far too long, covering most of his hands and slender fingers. Bucky found it insanely distracting. "It'd be great if you could make it," Steve said hopefully.

Bucky bit his lip. On the one hand, he wanted to spend more time with Steve and this was one way to do it. On the other hand, he hated Christmas. He'd planned to just lock himself in his apartment all week, maybe hang out with Wanda, since she didn't have a family to go to either. He had actually volunteered to work a shift on Christmas day itself, since he didn't have anywhere else to be anyway. But maybe a pre-Christmas party with Steve wouldn't be so bad.

Steve saw his hesitation. "No pressure or anything," he said, trying not to sound disappointed and failing.

"I just don't like the holidays much," Bucky said. He wanted Steve to know that his hesitation had nothing to do with him.

"It's not really a traditional Christmas party, if that helps. For one, there's not much food," he joked. "It's mostly just a way to get together without the formality of these meetings, you know?" He sounded more hopeful now.

"Okay," Bucky agreed before he could come up with a reason not to go. It did help a little to know that it wouldn't be like a regular Christmas celebration, but what really pushed him over the edge was Steve. He knew it was mildly ridiculous, but he didn't want to let him down.

"Really?" Steve said. He gave Bucky a bright smile.

He might come to regret this but for now, it seemed like the right thing to do. Besides, it might actually distract him from thinking about how terrible the holidays usually made him feel. "Yeah, really," he said. He'd do almost anything just to see that smile as often as possible.

"Great!" He looked at his watch. "I'm really sorry, but I have to go." In any other situation, Bucky would have assumed it was an excuse to get away from him, but Steve really did look bummed to have to go. "See you next week," he said, before making his exit.

\--------------------------

When Wanda found out that he was going to the Christmas party, she was delighted. She dragged him to the mall to buy him a hideous Christmas sweater, much to his chagrin.

"I'm not paying for this god awful thing," he grumbled. It looked like it had been put together by a three year old with zero artistic talents. Christmas-y things and patterns had been sewn haphazardly onto the red sweater, with no apparent consideration for whether the different elements went well together.

"What about this one?" Wanda asked, showing him a green sweater with a bunch of cats and ribbons on it. It was probably the stupidest thing he'd ever seen, but at least he did like cats.

"It looks dumb," he said, because he had an image to keep up.

"That's the point," Wanda argued. "Come on, I'll wear this one." She held up an equally stupid sweater featuring sloths.

"I can't believe you want me to spend my hard earned money on this." Secretly, he more he looked at the sweater, the more he liked it. He imagined Steve's face if he walked in wearing this thing. He grinned just at the thought of it.

Wanda huffed. "I'll buy it for you. Consider it my Christmas present to you." She took both their sweaters to the cash register.

"Does that mean I have to get you something?" Bucky asked.

She rolled her eyes. "No, it means I really want to see you wearing this sweater." She put the sweaters on the counter and greeted the cashier. The cashier did not return her greeting, instead eyeing Wanda warily. She was going natural today, as it was her day off. She only covered up anymore when she had to go to work.

"Fucking rotter," the cashier said under her breath as she rang up the sweaters.

Bucky's eyes went wide and he looked to Wanda to see if she had overheard her as well. She was still smiling pleasantly, so he suspected she hadn't heard. He was still debating whether to tell Wanda when she spoke up.

"You want to say that to my face?" Wanda said without dropping her smile. She looked like the picture of innocence, but her words were anything but. Bucky had never heard that tone of voice on her before.

The cashier floundered. She clearly thought she could have gotten away with it.

"If you're going to say hateful shit, at least have the balls to say it to my face. Own it or don't say it at all," Wanda continued. She was no longer smiling now. The cashier still didn't respond. "Yeah, thought so." Wanda paid and left the store, Bucky following in her wake.

"I cannot believe she actually thought I was going to stand by while she said that," Wanda said once they were out of the store.

Bucky didn't say anything. He probably wouldn't have called her out. He probably would have pretended he didn't hear her, giving her exactly what she wanted.

"And you know what the real bullshit here is?" Wanda continued. "If I had asked for her superior, everyone would've thought _I_ was the one causing a scene. Can't even stand up for yourself without everyone thinking you're about to start a riot." She huffed in anger. "Why are we responsible for their fear?"

Bucky wasn't sure if it was a rhetorical question or not. It looked to him like she just wanted to get this off her chest, so he let her rant for a bit.

"It's not like we're going to attack them, they should know that by now," she added.

She was right, of course. They posed no danger as long as they were medicated, at least no bigger danger than the general population. But populist politicians had thrived off the fear created by the Rising, claiming there were large groups of PDS sufferers who refused or regularly forgot to take their medication. It was infuriating; nobody would willingly revert to their rabid state. It was a horrible way to live. To think that anyone would choose to go off their meds was outrageous.

Not to mention those who claimed that the effects of the drugs were weakened over time, that they were slowly becoming immune to it, which would make them go rabid again. He thought of Steve and the side effects he experienced to the drugs. He should be able to get help, get better medication, but instead he was forced to stay silent or suffer the consequences of speaking up.

He was angry on behalf of Wanda, who had been nothing but kind and received a slur in response, and on behalf of Steve, who felt he couldn't get the help he needed because of fear-mongering politicians who would take any excuse to remove PDS sufferers from society.

"It's such bullshit," he agreed, voice shaking with anger.

Wanda looked up at him in surprise. She apparently hadn't expected him to respond. Now that he thought about it, this might have been the first time he vocally agreed with her on how fucked up their situation was. He usually just grunted a vague response, never particularly eager to engage in these kinds of conversations. The frustrations that were expressed every week at the meetings must have been rubbing off on him.

She took a deep breath. "Anyway, let's not let that asshole ruin our day," she said. "We have more shopping to do."

"Oh god, what else do you need to get?" Bucky asked.

She laughed. "Christmas decorations." She held up her hand when she saw how Bucky scrunched his nose in response. "Don't worry, it's just for me. I won't make you buy anything."

"So does that mean I can go?"

She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him along to the next store. "Absolutely not. As my friend, it's your duty to assist me."

"You can't make a one-armed man carry all your shit," he grumbled.

She gave him a shocked look - his arm was a topic they usually avoided - but burst out in laughter when she realized Bucky was joking. "I'm shocked you would think I only want you here to carry my things. You are here for your invaluable advice. And I can carry my own things, thank you very much."

Bucky snorted. "What if my advice is to not buy anything and leave?"

"Never said I'd _listen_ to your advice. Now c'mon, the longer you act like a grumpy old man, the longer this is going to take."

Luckily for Bucky, she seemed to know exactly what she was looking for. She bought way too many Christmas lights and incredibly tacky figurines. "It's ironic," she explained when Bucky looked at her in horror at the sight of them.

"Still ugly as fuck," he said. At least they'd go well with her sweater, he thought.

"I know," she said, delighted. "Isn't it great?"

Bucky rolled his eyes. He'd probably never really understand this, but she seemed excited about buying them and that was a good enough explanation.

When they were back at their apartment building, Wanda hugged him. "I had fun," she said.

He smiled. "Me too." It had been a good day.

\--------------------------

The week went by in a rush. Before he knew it, Thursday rolled by. He was both nervous and excited about the party.

Wanda came by shortly before they were supposed to leave, already wearing her hideous sweater. "Tsk," she said when she saw Bucky was still wearing his regular clothes. "Where's your sweater?"

"Really?" he asked, rolling his eyes.

"Yes, really. Come on, it'll be fun if you wear it."

At least he wouldn't be the only one wearing such a monstrosity, he thought as he took the sweater out of the bag and pulled it on.

"Great!" she said. "Let's go!" She all but dragged him out the door.

"You're awfully excited," Bucky commented. He was suspicious; she seemed a little too eager.

Her already big eyes became even bigger as she gave him her best innocent face. "What? I just think tonight will be fun."

He still eyed her suspiciously, but he went with her anyway.

The Pride center was decked out in decorations, though these were far classier than the stuff Wanda had bought for her own apartment. They were a bit early, not many people had arrived yet. Only Sam and Natasha were already present, who wished them a merry Christmas.

They took off their coats to reveal their sweaters. Sam almost choked on his own laughter. "Man, where did you dig up that thing?" he said.

"Ask Wanda," he grumbled. He couldn't fully suppress his laughter though; he must have made a ridiculous sight.

"Yeah, please tell me where you got these so I can get Sam one, too," Natasha chimed in.

"Don't you dare," Sam said, looking horrified.

Bucky was distracted from the ensuing squabble by Steve entering the room. Bucky walked towards him, the others still arguing about sweaters behind him.

Steve took one look at his sweater and burst out in laughter. "Jesus Christ, what is that?" Steve was wearing a Christmas sweater of his own, though his was a little more traditional. He looked adorable.

Bucky loved that he made Steve laugh, the sound making him feel lighter than he had all week. "A fashion statement," Bucky replied, grinning.

"It's definitely a statement, but I don't know if I can consider this fashion," Steve said. He was still laughing. "What are these even?" he asked, touching one of the bows with a little bell on it that adorned the sweater.

Bucky's breathing hitched. "They're the finishing touch, obviously," he said. It was a miracle he still had his wit about him at this point.

"Nah, you're the finishing touch," Steve said. He looked bashful the second the words left his mouth.

It didn't even matter to Bucky that it was a terrible line, he'd take it. It reminded him of the dumb shit he used to say when he was into someone. That seemed like such a distant past, even though in reality it had only been five years. "Are you always this smooth?"

"You ain't seen nothing yet," Steve said in a ridiculous voice. His eyes looked almost alive in their intensity. Bucky imagined they'd be twinkling now if Steve had been alive. They sat down in a quiet corner of the room, away from everyone else. "But really, how did Wanda convince you to wear this thing?"

"How do you know Wanda was involved?" Bucky asked.

"Who else?"

"Fair enough," Bucky said. He motioned his head towards her. "She promised to wear an equally stupid sloth sweater."

Steve craned his neck to see around Bucky. "Well, at least you're not alone."

Bucky laughed. "That's what I thought too. Honestly, I'm just glad she didn't make me buy decorations. You shoulda seen the hideous stuff she found."

"I'm really curious now," Steve said, chuckling.

"No really, I'm not exaggerating. She bought this one figurine of a child, it looked like a demon child," Bucky explained.

"Maybe that's what appealed to her," Steve suggested.

"Yeah, maybe." The Christmas lights made Steve look almost ethereal, his uncovered skin lighting up, his lips and the studs in them forming a stark contrast. Not for the first time, Bucky wondered how his lips could look that red. It shouldn't be possible and yet, here he was, looking more alive than any PDS sufferer Bucky had ever seen.

The two of them seemed to be in a small bubble together, the rest of the world falling away momentarily. Many more regulars had walked in while they were talking, but neither of them noticed. Bucky hadn't felt so singularly focused in a long time. Something was smoldering in the pit of his stomach and it grounded him.

Steve asked him if he'd read any more good books recently and Bucky found himself talking about his favorite books and favorite authors, those books that made him feel like his life would never be the same once he had read them, those authors whose words seemed to cut right through his core. Steve expressed true interest, asking questions and listening intently when Bucky talked.

Steve, in turn, talked about his art, how he hadn't been able to spend as much time on it as he would have looked, but he loved sitting down and just drawing for a few hours whenever he could. He told Bucky that he started drawing because he spent a lot of time in the hospital as a kid and he had to find something to do, something that would distract him from the realities of being sick all the time.

They talked for what could have been minutes or hours; Bucky had no real sense of time right now.

Steve looked at his watch. "I have to go home," he said. He didn't get up though, reluctant to actually leave. "So what are you doing Christmas day?" he asked. He was sitting so close to Bucky that their knees were touching.

Bucky shrugged. "I'm working. Don't really know what else I'm doing."

Steve's jaw dropped a little. "You're working? So you weren't kidding when you said you don't like the holidays?"

Bucky smiled weakly. "Guess not."

"Can I do something to change your mind?" Steve smiled and bit his lip.

It was almost the exact same question Steve had asked him after his first meeting. He hadn't had a good answer then, and he didn't have a good answer now. He found himself staring at his feet, wishing he could come up with something smart or funny.

"Hey," Steve said, getting his attention. He looked up at Steve. "Merry Christmas, Buck." Steve leaned in and pressed his lips to Bucky's very briefly. It was so quick Bucky barely had time to process what happened before Steve was already getting up to leave. For a second, Bucky wondered if he made it up, but Steve smiled at him and he knew it must have been real. He couldn't feel it as vividly as he would have if he'd had a beating heart, but sense memory filled in the blanks of what he couldn’t feel. He had definitely felt the press of Steve against him and that was good enough for him. It was such a sweet moment, he was momentarily stunned. But when he came back to his senses, he knew he couldn't just sit there and wait until next week to see Steve. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV switch! 
> 
> As promised, this is the second Christmas-related chapter. Next week, I'll be posting on Wednesday again. 
> 
> There are brief discussions of terminal illness in this chapter. As always, if you need more details, feel free to [message me](http://hufflepuffbuckybarnes.tumblr.com/ask).

Steve hadn't expected to be here at all. He wasn't looking for a relationship or romance or anything, really. He had other things on his mind. He had his mom to take care of and his activism took up a lot of time. The last thing he'd expected when he went to the library to pick up a couple of books for his mom was to run into someone like Bucky.

He'd misjudged him completely initially, like the idiot that he was. A complete snap decision based on the fact that Bucky had been staring at him. He still wasn't sure why Bucky had stared at him like that, but whatever the reason, it wasn't because Bucky was judging him. He'd felt like a complete asshole when Peggy gently informed him that Bucky was PDS. In his defense, Bucky really had his makeup game down. He could pass as living any day.

Once he actually took a look at Bucky, he was struck by how beautiful he was. His jawline was so sharp Steve thought it could cut a man, his hair was nothing short of glorious and Steve found himself wondering what Bucky's eyes had looked like when he was still alive. Even more so, he wondered what Bucky would look like without all that makeup and the contacts.

It was a happy coincidence when he ran into Bucky again at the library and then again at the Pride Center. He was delighted, though. Bucky was clearly a little reserved and Steve felt the need to get beneath that distant exterior. Besides, he liked that Bucky didn't automatically agree with him on everything; it presented a challenge.

Sam saw through him immediately. "You're into him, right?" he said after Bucky had left.

"I don't even know him," Steve protested.

"Don't bullshit me, Rogers." He gave Steve an unimpressed look.

"Okay, fine. But I still don't really know him."

Sam laughed. "You just see a hot guy who looks like a lost kitten and you're sold."

Lost kitten was a weirdly accurate way to describe Bucky, as far as Steve could tell at this point. There was obviously a lot going in under the surface - he could see it in Bucky's eyes - and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

Peggy and Angie weren't fooled either. He was hanging out with them at a local coffee shop. He always ordered a cupcake or brownie or some other pastry so the staff wouldn't side-eye him for not buying anything and then just ended up giving it to Peggy or Angie. More often than not, Angie ended up eating it; she had a real sweet tooth.

He was glad they had managed to find a balance. At first, he'd been jealous of Angie and he suspected she had been jealous of him. But realistically he knew he couldn't claim Peggy. He was in her past and she had struggled through the grieving process already, with a lot of help from Angie. When he came back, it was an adjustment for all of them. He was glad to see that Peggy was happy, at least. He let that be the thing that would guide him through this: Peggy's happiness. He'd talked to Angie about it extensively; he wanted them to be on the same page and he didn't want her to feel threatened in any way. He found that she was one of the kindest, most generous people he'd ever met. He would've understood if she hadn't wanted anything to with him, but she insisted that he should be a part of their lives.

Their friendship grew over the intervening years and now, the three of them could hang out without any awkwardness hanging over them.

While they were sitting in that coffee shop, Angie nibbling on the brownie Steve had bought, Steve tried to ask about Bucky without raising any suspicions. Peggy looked at him shrewdly, while Angie told him that Bucky came in to the library a couple of times a week at least and that she tried to talk to him because he always seemed lonely.

Peggy quirked an eyebrow. "You're not as subtle as you think," she said.

"What?" Steve asked, surprised.

"It's obvious you have a thing for him," Peggy explained.

Angie sat up, very interested in this turn of events. "Oooh, what's your plan?"

Steve sighed. "Shut up,there is no plan."

"But you do have a thing for him?" Angie pressed.

"Maybe," he conceded.

Angie frowned. "Then you should definitely have a plan!" She and Peggy spent the rest of the afternoon concocting increasingly unlikely scenarios in which Steve could woo Bucky.

He just let them go on while laughing at their more outrageous ideas; it was probably a non-starter anyway. It was hard to connect to Bucky, considering that he almost never seemed to speak his mind. Of course, that mystery was part of what attracted Steve in the first place. He wanted to know what was going on in his head, but he just couldn't seem to get there.

He'd seen people like Bucky before: timid, folding in on themselves as if to take up as little space as humanly possible. Before the Rising, it was usually queer teens who were struggling with themselves or their families. After, PDS sufferers who had been rejected by society joined the mix. Every time, Steve counted his blessings. Despite it all, he still had his mom, who never once made him feel inferior and who had always encouraged him to stand up for himself and for others.

He wondered who had made Bucky feel less than, who was responsible for the way he carried himself. Over the course of their conversations, it became increasingly clear to Steve that Bucky was weighed down by immense guilt. Steve suspected he killed someone he knew while in his untreated state, maybe someone he cared about. With the way Bucky talked about how it only made sense for some people to be scared of them, there was no other explanation. It was something they all struggled with to some extent of course - very few people had come back to themselves to find they had not killed someone they knew. Facing that reality would always be difficult. At the same time, Steve strongly believed that it should not justify fear against them when they were medicated. They couldn't change what happened during the Rising, they could only deal with the reality that they faced here and now.

His suspicion was confirmed when Bucky got so upset while Simon was talking about his neighbor. He hadn't understood the severity of it until he saw Bucky on that bathroom floor, holding himself and rocking back and forth slowly. He hadn't known what to do. He desperately wanted to make it better, but he had no idea how. It didn't feel like it was enough to just sit next to Bucky. He had tried to communicate that whatever happened, it wasn't his fault and it didn't make him a monster, but he doubted that had much of an effect.

The next day, he just had to check on Bucky. He'd been thinking about what happened all evening, had slept poorly as a result. Bucky looked a little disheveled when he opened the door, his sweatpants and shirt clearly worn, but he also seemed happy, albeit surprised to see Steve. It was a bit of a shock to see the state of Bucky's apartment. He'd done his best to hide his reaction, but it was clear that after six months, Bucky had not settled into this life at all yet and that worried Steve. It wasn't a home; it was just a place where Bucky could sleep and sit. The only personal touch in his apartment were the books scattered on small piles on the floor. It seemed like Bucky was expecting to have to pack his things and leave any minute. As if he expected that he could never really settle anywhere and so he just didn't bother to make the effort.

What could have happened to make Bucky feel _that_ unwelcome?

Steve tried to address it lightheartedly and thankfully, Bucky responded in kind. Every now and then, a smile would be playing around his lips. In those moments, his frown would fade away, replaced by something lighter, more youthful. He wanted to make sure that Bucky would look that way as often as possible.

When he actually smiled widely, Steve felt like his heart might have stopped if it hadn't already been still for years. Despite the fact that his apartment did not feel like much of a home to Steve, Bucky certainly seemed to be more comfortable here. His shoulders were more relaxed and his smiles came more easily. He realized this was becoming a little more than just a shallow crush.

\--------------------------

Inviting Bucky to the Christmas party was mostly an excuse to see if there could really be something here. He was momentarily disappointed when Bucky was visibly hesitant, but he knew now that it wasn't because of him, it was just because Bucky disliked the holidays. Steve suspected it was because of the same reasons that had left Bucky living alone in a nearly empty apartment.

Seeing him in that absolutely ridiculous sweater was better than anything he could have hoped for. Up till now, Bucky usually wore black or other dark colors. He was still wearing black jeans today, but the sweater was bright green with red accents. Not to mention the cats, who each had a facial expression that made Steve crack up.

Their conversation flowed easily and Steve wished this night would never have to end. This was definitely more than a crush. The more he got to know about Bucky, the more he wanted to be around him, learn more about him.

So when he realized that Bucky hated the holidays even more than he had thought and he looked so sad in response to Steve's question, he just had to do something. He leaned closer and kissed Bucky, for just a moment.

He got up and smiled at Bucky, who looked completely perplexed, though not upset. He really did have to leave, his mom needed his help, so he walked to the door.

What he absolutely did not expect was for Bucky to follow him out into the hallway, spin him around and kiss him more forcefully. It was so different from the shyness he had exhibited up until now. Steve gasped against Bucky's mouth, which Bucky took as an opportunity to lightly brush his tongue against Steve's. He could feel this much more strongly than he ever could have imagined, but he shoved that thought to the back of his mind. He'd think about the implications of that later. Right now he just wanted to be in this moment.

Bucky's hand was resting lightly on his back and Steve found one of his hands drawn to Bucky's hair. It felt soft against his fingers.

When Bucky finally drew back, he smiled softly. His makeup was a little messed up around his mouth. Steve had the urge to mess it up even further.

"I wasn't expecting that," Steve said. He couldn't wipe his smile off his face.

"Yeah, well, me neither," Bucky said bashfully.

His phone beeped. Without looking, he knew it would be his mom. "I'm sorry, I really have to get going now. Just um, let me give you my number, okay?" Bucky handed him his phone and Steve entered his number. He pressed his lips to Bucky's briefly once more, before leaving.

\--------------------------

"Sorry I'm late," Steve called as he entered the apartment. Sarah Rogers was sitting on the couch, looking tired but not annoyed.

"That's okay," she said. "What kept you busy?"

"Just kind of lost track of time," he said. It wasn't untrue, exactly.

"Bucky?" she asked, looking like she already knew the answer.

Steve couldn't suppress his smile. He'd told her about Bucky, of course. Like Sam and Peggy, she had seen through his attempted casualness immediately. When he complained about it, his mom had told him his face had always been a complete open book. "Yeah," he replied.

"You have a good time?"

He nodded. "Yeah, it was really nice." He looked at the time. "C'mon, let's get you to bed." He helped her get up and into the bathroom. Her health had declined rapidly, but Steve tried not to think about it right now. She was a part of an experimental drug trial and all they could do was wait to see if it worked.

Sarah had been diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer about a year ago. They just couldn't seem to catch a break. Sarah had had to deal with losing Steve four years ago after being sick most of his life. But she got to have him back. Steve was going to have to deal with losing her, for good. For whatever reason, only those who died in 2012 had come back. Nobody else got a second chance at life.

He helped her get ready for bed, as he always did on bad days. This treatment was hitting her, hard. Steve hoped the drug was as aggressive on the cancer cells as it seemed to be on the rest of her. A cure was out of the question by now, but he hoped to forestall the inevitable. He would take as much time as the universe was willing to give them.

\--------------------------

That night, after his mom was already in bed, he saw he had received a text from an unknown number.

_**[hey, thank you for tonight]** _

**[I had a really good time. We should do it again sometime ;)]**

He definitely wasn't going to wait until next week to see Bucky again. They texted back and forth for a while, making plans to meet the day after Christmas. It was just three days away, but Steve could hardly wait.

**[I was gonna suggest this coffee place, but I guess it'll be weird if neither of us can buy anything]**

**_[this whole not eating thing is really interfering with this whole dating thing]_ **

Steve snorted. **[You're such a dork]**

**_[wow. i'm offended]_ **

****

**[No wonder Wanda didn't have trouble convincing you to wear that sweater. You love that shit]**

****

**_[i do not (okay maybe i do)]_ **

****

**[You know Columbus park?]** Steve texted, having remembered what they were actually talking about.

_**[obviously. i can practically see it from my apartment :)]** _

****

**[Meet there? 2pm?]**

**_[yeah, sounds good]_ **

****

**[Looking forward to it. x]**

****

**_[me too. x]_ **

****

Steve felt elated. He hadn't dared dream it would go this well. He was awake for a while, nervous excitement thrumming through his veins, before finally falling in a deep sleep.

\--------------------------

On Christmas day, Steve woke up early. He was going to spend today with his mom. He was acutely aware of the fact that this might very well be his last Christmas with her, but he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. He couldn't let the sadness stain this.

**[Merry Christmas]** he texted Bucky.

It took much longer than usual for him to get a response. _**[hey :). hope you have a good christmas]**_

****

Steve frowned. **[What time does your shift end?]**

**_[why?]_ **

**[Just wondering. Have a good day anyway. x]**

He made his mom breakfast and brought it to her in bed. There was a good chance she wouldn't be that hungry, but he wanted to treat this like any other Christmas. They had always had breakfast in bed on Christmas day, for as long as Steve could remember, and nothing was going to stop them.

Sarah didn't eat much, but they sat on the bed and just talked. It didn't matter that the food was going to waste. He was happy to have this.

In the afternoon, Sam and Natasha dropped by. They had been a massive help over the past year, both of them having offered to drive Sarah to the hospital whenever necessary, since Steve didn't have a driver's license.

Steve had made lunch, knowing that at least one person present would have a healthy appetite. He set the table, Sam helping him, while Natasha and Sarah sat down.

"Man, this smells so good I wish I could eat it," Sam said as he carried some of the food to the table.

Natasha grinned. "I'm willing to give you a detailed account of how it tastes."

"Remind me again why I chose to love this woman?" Sam said.

"Because she can kick your ass?" Steve suggested.

Sarah laughed, while Sam shrugged. "I'll take it," he said.

Natasha ate more than her tiny frame would suggest, but Sarah still wasn't very hungry. Steve was happy to see her eat a little bit, at least.

He checked his phone much more frequently than usual, just to see if Bucky had texted him. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he wanted to be there if Bucky needed him for whatever reason.

"So," Sam began, turning towards Sarah, "has Steve been checking his phone like a lovesick teenager all the time, or is that just today?"

Steve kicked him under the table. "I am not."

"Oh no, he definitely is," Sarah countered. "What?" she said when she saw Steve's face. "Just tellin' it like it is."

"You should've seen them at the meeting, Sarah," Natasha chimed in. "It was adorable."

"Oh my God," Steve complained. "Why are you like this?"

"Because we love you, buddy," Sam said, grinning.

"You should've just told me your type was hobo chic," Natasha said. She'd been trying to set Steve up on dates pretty much as long as they'd known each other. She never made a big deal out of it, but Steve knew she worried about him being lonely, especially after Sarah had been diagnosed. He kept insisting he was fine and he didn't need her help in that department, which had been true, until Bucky. He honestly hadn't been looking for anything, it just happened.

"You guys are the worst," Steve said, but he was smiling.

"So where is Bucky today?" Natasha asked.

"He's working tonight."

Natasha raised her eyebrows. "Really?"

Steve nodded. "He doesn't like the holidays, so he took the Christmas shift."

"And he came to the Christmas party anyway?" Sam asked. "Man, he must really be into you."

Steve grinned despite himself. Eventually, Sarah changed the topic by asking about Natasha's job, much to Steve's relief. He was glad everyone was so excited for him, but it was much too early to have anything substantial to say. They hadn't even gone on a date yet.

When he cleared the table, he took it as an excuse to send Bucky a quick text while he was in the kitchen.

**[How you doing?]**

It took a few minutes for Bucky to respond. _**[you know i just read that in a joey voice right]**_

****

**[I don't know if I should be offended or not]**

**_[nah, you should only be offended if i compared you to ross]_ **

****

**[Okay okay]** Steve laughed at Bucky’s comparison. **[But really, how are you?]**

**_[fine, i guess. wanda is coming over in a few]_ **

****

**[Okay, hope you have a good time]**

He put his phone down, reassured for the moment that Bucky was at least doing alright. Still, he wanted to do more.

When Natasha and Sam left to visit Sam's family for Christmas dinner, Sarah called Steve over.

"Your presents are in my wardrobe, on the back of the second shelf," she said.

"Mom, I thought we weren't going to do presents this year." Steve had suggested it a couple of months earlier and Sarah had agreed.

"I couldn't resist," she replied. "It's already been bought, you might as well unpack it," she said when Steve sighed.

"Fine." In truth, he had also gotten her something. He didn't exactly buy something, just so he could claim he stuck to his own rule. He made a portrait of the two of them in bright watercolors. He usually did pencil drawings, so this had been a new kind of challenge for him. He worked on it until he thought it was perfect. He went into his mom's room to retrieve his own presents and then walked to his own room to get her gift as well. He'd framed it and wrapped it just a few days earlier, when he finally finished it.

She laughed when she saw him walk in with her present. "And you act all mad cause I got you something?"

"I didn't _buy_ you anything," he replied as he handed her the large package.

"You first," she said.

Steve looked down at the small collection of presents in his hands. He unwrapped the largest first: pencils he'd been eyeing for a long time, but he couldn't justify the expenses. She also got him a book by a PDS activist he'd been meaning to read, but hadn't gotten around to buying yet. Last was an envelope. He had to take his time to read its contents and let them sink in. "You're giving me the apartment?"

She nodded. "It's almost paid off. I don't want you to have to worry about this."

Steve's head was spinning. His parents had bought this apartment ages ago, long before he was born. It was a part of his DNA at this point. He hadn't let himself think of what was going to happen to it when his mom wasn't around anymore. "Thank you," he said, voice choked. He hugged her closely, felt tears welling up in his eyes.

"You're welcome, darling," she said. When Steve had composed himself a little, she unwrapped her present. She took in the painting and started crying. "It's stunning," she said, tears running down her cheeks.

She asked Steve to put it up above the couch, a prominent spot in the living room. Steve's heart felt full, knowing he could have this, even if it wouldn't last.

\--------------------------

Sarah turned in early that night. She was tired from the treatment and the excitement of that day. Steve sat on the couch, watching a Christmas movie that he wasn't really paying attention to. He was restless. He hadn't heard back from Bucky after their text conversation in the afternoon.

It was unfair that Bucky didn't know the safety and love that Steve associated with the holidays. He wanted to show Bucky that there was reason to be optimistic. He made an impulse decision, leaving a note for his mom telling her where he went in case she woke up.

It was just a short walk to Bucky's building. He could just walk in; the lock on the front door had been broken a few weeks ago and it still wasn't fixed. Steve wondered how long it had been broken. The whole building was shabby; it was clear no maintenance had been performed here for a long time. There was mold on the walls and there were exposed wires everywhere. He walked up to Bucky's apartment on the third floor. He hoped Bucky hadn't gone to sleep immediately after his shift. Maybe this had been a bad idea, maybe he should've called or texted first. But then, he was already here. He might as well go through with it.

He knocked on the door and waited. He heard shuffling on the other side, so Bucky must still be awake. Bucky opened the door, surprised.

"Hey! What are you do-"

Steve cut him off with a kiss. Bucky made a surprised sound against his mouth, but kissed him back once he got over his surprise.

When Steve pulled back, Bucky looked a little dazed. "So uh, you wanna come in?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Yeah, unless you were about to go to sleep or something?"

Bucky smiled. "I'm awake now." He gestured for Steve to sit on the chair, while he settled on the floor again, much like the last time Steve was here.

Steve made a mental note to ask Bucky to buy another chair or something because this was getting to be ridiculous.

"So, how was your Christmas?" Bucky asked.

"It was good," Steve replied. "Sam and Natasha came by for lunch." He hesitated for a moment. "And, uh, my mom kind of gave me the apartment?"

Bucky's eyes went wide. "Huh?"

He figured he might as well get this over with as soon as possible. If Bucky wasn't ready to deal with this, he'd rather know sooner than later. "She's sick," he began. "Terminal. So she took care of the apartment already and just kind of gave it to me. I mean, there's still some payments left on it, but she's been living there for ages and a lot of it's already paid off."

"Jesus," Bucky said. "I had no idea." He stared at the floor for a moment, processing this new information. "So, how is she?" he asked carefully.

Steve shrugged. "As well as can be expected. She's doing this experimental drug trial now so we'll just have to wait and see how that goes."

"What a fucking shit show," Bucky said.

It was the first time someone hadn't tried to console Steve with false reassurances upon hearing about his mother's illness. He knew that the people who did that meant well, they wanted Steve to know that they were there for him, that they felt terrible that this was happening to him and his mother and he appreciated that. But it also always rang false in his head because he knew it simply wasn't true when people told him he'd be okay. In the long term, yes, he might be okay some day. But right now, he had to muddle through and Bucky was right, it was an absolute shit show. "Yeah. It is," Steve agreed. "Thank you for that," he added.

Bucky frowned. "For what?"

"For not pretending that any of this is okay."

Bucky placed his hand on Steve's. "Sometimes being a pessimist comes in handy, huh?" he said.

Steve smiled weakly. "Guess so." It was strange to find solace in negativity, but sometimes he just needed to know that it was okay to feel like shit about everything that was happening. "You know, I was at the library that day because she wanted something to read and I promised I would pick up some books for her."

"I'm glad your mom is a reader," Bucky said.

"Me too," Steve replied. They sat in companionable silence for a while. "Can I ask you something?" Steve finally said, breaking the silence.

Bucky looked up. "Yeah, I suppose." He looked hesitant, as if he was already debating which questions he would answer and which he would leave hanging in the air.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he reassured Bucky. His shoulders sagged a little in relief. "What is it about Christmas?"

Bucky sighed. He picked at the hem of his sweater sleeves. He was silent for such a long time that Steve didn't think he was going to answer, but then he spoke up anyway. "My parents died when I was twelve. Christmas just always reminded me of how much I missed."

Steve was taken aback. He'd expected this to be directly related to Bucky being PDS, he thought maybe Bucky had been kicked out by his family. It hadn't even occurred to him that it might have had a much older cause. "What about other relatives?" Steve asked carefully.

Bucky shook his head. "Just bounced around from foster home to foster home until I was old enough to live on my own."

Steve couldn't imagine not having a real home to go to, especially at that age. His mom had always been there for him, even if his dad had passed away shortly after he'd been born. At least he'd never had to deal with that loss in a conscious way. His dad had simply never been there, so he only missed the abstract concept of a father, not a flesh and blood man who he vividly remembered. "I'm so sorry, Buck," he said. He didn't know what else to say. He squeezed Bucky's hand. It felt wrong to be sitting like this, Steve towering over Bucky in his chair, so he slid off the chair, moved to sit beside Bucky on the floor and pulled him in for a hug. "You really need to buy a couch," Steve mumbled.

Bucky snorted. "Guess I do."

They sat like that for a while, until Steve noticed Bucky's eyes began to droop and he decided it was time to go home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays and thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for another flashback chapter!

Bucky Barnes was twelve years old when his parents went to a concert and never came back. He’d been living an easy life up until that moment. His parents loved him, showered him in affection, told him he could be and do whatever he wanted, as long as he was kind.

They weren't extremely well off, but Bucky never wanted for anything. He didn't have any siblings, so he got his parents' undivided attention at all times. They worked hard to give him what he wanted, but they didn't have to work so many hours that Bucky never saw them. The three of them made up a tiny, but unbreakable unit.

He was a gifted student, though his parents always told him not to look down on anyone. He got into an advanced science program for gifted kids in the city. He got to do experiments and build things and mess around with all kinds of cool stuff. He loved that program. In school, the other kids sometimes looked at him funny. He wasn't part of the cool crowd, but that was okay. He could hang out with the other kids at the program.

There was an older boy there when Bucky first started the program, two years earlier. He conducted himself with such self-assurance, it was hard not to notice him. He was generous with his knowledge and time, though. He was always willing to help other kids out, especially the younger ones. He told Bucky on his first day that if he needed anything, he just had to ask for Tony.

On parents day, Bucky got to meet the boy's parents. His mother was exactly as he imagined her. She seemed kind, open, encouraging and genuinely interested in her son's projects. His father was colder, more distant. He introduced himself to Bucky's parents as Howard Stark, without sparing more than a passing glance at Bucky. He wasn't rude, necessarily. It was more like he was preoccupied with so many other things that he had no time for mere mortals.

Over the next few years, Bucky and Tony worked together on some projects. The first time Bucky had visited Tony's apartment, he was shocked. His parents weren't poor, but he had never seen anything like this. The apartment seemed to go on and on and on. Over time, he got a little more used to it.

That fateful night, Bucky was at home with his babysitter. He'd insisted he was too old for a babysitter, but his parents wouldn't hear of it. They weren't going to leave him alone at twelve years old, they'd said. His babysitter, a twenty year old college student named Lily, opened the door when they heard the doorbell ring at 11:23pm. He should have been asleep, but he had trouble actually falling asleep. Bucky just happened to check the time when she opened the door. Those numbers would be burned in his brain for the rest of his life.

He couldn't hear what was said, but he heard muffled voices, followed by Lily crying. She came into his room, the police officers following in her wake. There had been an accident, they said. They hadn't suffered, one of the police officers said, as if that would make things better.

Later, he learned it had been a drunk driver. They arrested the guy, but Bucky didn't go to his trial. He had no interest in seeing the man who had so thoughtlessly ruined his life.

He didn't have any family to go to. His mother had been an immigrant who had made her way as a young woman from Russia by herself. Bucky’s father didn't have any siblings, his father had passed away a few years earlier and his mother was in a home for patients suffering from Alzheimer's.

So he was shuffled from foster home to foster home. It wasn't all bad. Some of them really tried to make his life as easy as possible, but the system was not in his favor. Nobody adopted older kids.

He stayed in touch with Tony, then fifteen. Some weeks, he spent more time at Tony's place than at whatever foster home he was in. Howard had warmed up to him over the years, and he was always a welcome guest. Maria always tried to take care of him as best she could. She was always worried about him not eating enough, even though that had never once been a problem in his life. His foster homes weren't ideal, but he was always provided with his basic needs. When he needed a laptop for school, Maria convinced Howard to buy him one. Bucky had protested that he couldn't possibly except such an expensive gift, but Maria wouldn't hear of it.

"You need this and we can give it to you. Let us," she insisted.

He always felt indebted to her for her kindness. Tony, too, had been there for him. He treated Bucky like the brother he had never had. Bucky looked up to him every step of the way, not just because he was older, but because Tony just seemed to _know_ things.

When he was fifteen and Tony tried to get him to go on dates with girls and Bucky confessed he wasn't interested because he just didn't think of girls that way, Tony didn't make a big deal out of it.

"Hey man, that's cool." He considered this development for a moment. "So, what kind of guys are you into?"

Bucky felt a wave of relief. This wasn't going to be a deal-breaker for them. He had worried that Tony might freak out, might assume Bucky had a crush on him, or might have thought Bucky was disgusting, but his fears were completely unfounded.

The next day, Tony showed up with information on the GSA at his school that he could join if he wanted to. He also promised Bucky that if anyone give him shit, Tony would personally kick their asses. Though they didn't attend the same school - Bucky could never afford the fancy private school Tony attended - he still felt safer knowing he had someone in his corner.

When he came out to Maria a little while later, she was just as supportive. She hugged him and told him it didn't change a thing. She asked him to bring his first boyfriend along for dinner and while Howard didn't seem thrilled, he didn't say anything about it either. Howard's approval didn't matter to him as much as Tony's or Maria's anyway. He knew he could always count on them, no matter what.

Howard had always remained a little distant. Bucky had spent more than one sleepover listening to Tony complain about his father, about how nothing he ever did seemed to be good enough for him, how he seemed to be looking for something that neither Tony nor Maria could give him. Once, Tony had suggested that Howard hadn't even wanted to get married and have a kid, that Howard had made a mistake and he only realized it when it was too late.

"I wish he'd just have the guts to walk out on us and confirm what we already know," Tony had grumbled.

Bucky had been shocked. He'd been wishing to have his father back, and here Tony was, wishing the opposite. "You don't know what you're saying," he had said in a small voice.

Tony looked at him, finally realizing how his words must have sounded to Bucky. "Shit, sorry. I didn't mean - well, shit. I shouldn't have said that." He sighed. "I don't want him gone, not really," he continued. "I just wish he was more _here_."

Bucky nodded. "I know."

\--------------------------

In his senior year of high school, he applied for a number of universities, at the insistence of Howard. Tony had also regaled Bucky with stories of how awesome it was: he barely had to put in any work to pass his classes, so he spent most of his time partying. Howard scolded Tony for not taking his education seriously, but he said he trusted Bucky to do the right thing and be a committed student.

The problem was that Bucky wasn't looking forward to college. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do at all. His enthusiasm for science had faded over the years, though he was still passing his classes with ease. He had trouble envisioning his future in any way. The thought of being an appendix to the Stark family for the rest of his life made him feel isolated. He wanted to be a part of something, to make a difference somehow. He sincerely doubted that college could clear his path for him. It only seemed to cloud it.

So when an army recruiter came to his high school, looking for underprivileged kids that he could convince to join, he listened to the guy.

When he brought it up with Tony, he reacted with surprise. "But why would you do that when you've got a bunch of scholarship offers to choose from?"

Bucky shrugged. "It's just something I wanna do. Do my part."

"You can do your part without risking getting blown up!"

Bucky sighed. "I just don't think college is it for me. Not now." He had been thinking about what his parents had always told him: that it didn't matter what he did, as long as it made him happy. He had convinced himself that college would not make him happy. The army seemed to offer him a straight path in life; it would be clear what they wanted from him and he would give it to them. In college, he'd be stressed by all the possibilities that would be open to him. Not to mention that he worried about not fitting in, as he never really had fit in everywhere, not completely. He was an outsider at school, which was only solidified when he came out. Nobody bullied him for it, but his small circle of friends certainly didn't grow. He was an outsider in his foster homes, never settling in because he knew he might have to move again. There was no point in getting attached. The only constant in his life had been the Stark family and while they had shown him nothing but kindness, there would always be a distance between them. Bucky wasn't a part of their family and their wealthy lifestyle had always been somewhat alien to him, even if they had never made a point of him being from a different socio-economic background. As he grew older, he also wondered why, if they considered him to be part of the family, they hadn't made it formal and adopted him. He'd never dared to ask Tony or Maria, let alone Howard, but it was a question that plagued his mind more and more often.

"And a job where you have to go back in the closet is?" Tony asked, outraged.

"It's not like I'm gonna be dating guys over there," Bucky argued.

"Jesus Christ, as if that's the fucking point." He sighed. "Look, if this is really what you want, fine. But at least think about it for a while. And for the love of Jesus, don't tell dad until you've made a decision either way. It's not worth the freak out if you end up changing your mind," Tony said, calmer now.

He didn't change his mind, though he did take Tony's advice and think about it before signing up. Howard was predictably angry and disappointed, but that wasn't going to stop Bucky. Maria was sad and concerned. She didn't say anything when he broke the news, but he could see it in her eyes. He told them he was going to be okay, this was just something he had to do. By the time he went to basic training, they supported him, even if they were a little reluctant.

It turned out he was good at this. It only seemed natural to go for special forces training. It would be a grueling process and it would take much longer than basic, but he liked the idea of being a part of a much smaller group of soldiers. Though he got through all of the training with relative ease, he had trouble connecting with the other guys. Their sense of humor was crude, not to mention often offensive to Bucky, though he couldn't say much. Commenting on their homophobic jokes was as good as outing himself, which was against army regulations. So he learned to bite his tongue and focus on his training instead.

Some days, he thought about quitting. The sense of community he'd been looking for was not to be found here, not for him. He hung out with one guy, Peter, a lot, but other than that, he mostly kept to himself. But it was not as if home would offer him much better prospects and he was so close to finishing his training now. He might as well see this through.

So he stuck it out. After over two years of training, he got his orders to go to Afghanistan. Maria hugged him tightly before he left. Her eyes were swimming with tears. "Be safe," she told him. Howard wished him good luck. Finally, there was Tony. He seemed conflicted; he still didn't agree with Bucky going down this path. But he hugged him anyway. "Gonna miss you, man," he said.

"Yeah, me too," Bucky replied.

\--------------------------

Seven months later, Tony and his parents watched Bucky's coffin sink down into the hole that had been dug for him. Tony had been devastated when he heard the news. He'd missed Bucky more than he ever could have expressed - Bucky had been the one person he could always count on, the brother he had always wanted. And now Bucky was never going to come back. He looked over to his mother, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. They'd all have to do without him from now on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading and see you in 2017!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some allusions to past rape in this chapter, but no graphic descriptions.

There were no two ways about it: Bucky was scared shitless. He was falling hard for Steve. Not in a million years had he expected that kiss and he'd surprised himself by following Steve down the hall and kissing him back. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd been this impulsive. In fact, he couldn't even remember the last time he felt so strongly about taking action in any form. He just _had_ to do something when Steve kissed him.

He was still worried that this was going too fast, or that it would be like last time, or that he would end up alone again, as always. But a stronger part of him wanted to try.

Wanda had been all over his case after the Christmas party, telling him how cute they looked sitting there, and she just happened to look over when Steve kissed him, and that "was the cutest thing I have ever seen!" she told him. Bucky tried to be all grumpy about it, but in truth, he was floating.

His shift on Christmas day passed in a bit of a haze. His thoughts kept drifting to tomorrow, his nerves alight with excitement. He'd been getting ready to go to bed when that knock on his door came. Another surprise.

Telling Steve about his parents wasn't really part of the plan. He barely ever spoke about them. The pain was too vivid, even after thirteen years. But after Steve told him about his mother, he felt he could trust Steve with this. He hoped to God he hadn't been wrong about that.

\--------------------------

He was supposed to meet Steve at 2pm. The park was practically around the corner from his building, so he had plenty of time to get ready. Or so he thought. At 1:30, he still hadn't decided what to wear. He was looking at his collection of clothes, finding them woefully inadequate. All of his sweaters were old and baggy. He wondered why he hadn't invested in a single decent outfit. He'd been staring at his clothes for half an hour, as if a new piece of clothing would magically appear out of thin air and save the day.

Finally giving up on finding something impressive to wear, he chose his one nice pair of black skinny jeans, pulled on his least ratty sweater and grabbed his coat.

Steve didn't seem the least bit perturbed by Bucky's lack of fashion sense, greeting him with his usual enthusiasm and a quick kiss. They walked through the park for a while, Steve moving to walk on Bucky's right so he could hold his hand.

Some of the bystanders gave them dirty looks; Bucky was wearing his makeup, as per usual, while Steve was going natural again. It was hard to tell if they were disgusted because they were a same-sex couple or because they assumed Bucky was a living person who was dating a PDS sufferer. It reminded Bucky of when he first started dating a guy and he'd wanted to shrink in on himself whenever someone looked at him funny. He'd shaken that off pretty quickly, but now here he was, dealing with that same feeling again. Steve either didn't notice or was better at ignoring it because he happily continued talking.

Eventually, Steve's carefree attitude began to rub off on him. He almost felt normal again.

It was a cold day and though no snow had fallen yet, it felt like there was snow in the air. The air had that crisp smell that Bucky associated with snow.

The park wasn't very big and before long, they had circled the entire grounds.

"There's a movie theater near here, you wanna go see a movie?" Steve suggested.

Bucky tried to remember when he last went to a cinema and concluded it must have been shortly before he'd left for Afghanistan. "God, it's been ages," he said.

"Is that a yes?"

Bucky nodded. "Yeah, let's go."

Steve wasn't kidding, the cinema was maybe a five minute walk. Bucky had no idea what most of the movies were about, so he let Steve pick. As long as it wasn't extremely violent, he'd be fine. Steve picked a mindless romantic comedy, which was a pretty safe choice. The guy at the box office gave them a weird look, but he didn't say anything, much to Bucky's relief. He wanted to continue to pretend that they were normal.

They chose a couple of seats near the back. The theater was nearly empty, just a dozen other people scattered around the room. Steve had barely sat down before he pushed up the arm rest so there wouldn't be any barrier between them.

There was something about being in the dark like this, letting the world fall away and forgetting about the outside for a moment. Nobody here could tell they were PDS, not in the dark. He could hide for a couple of hours and just _be_ , without having to think about what others were saying or thinking.

Bucky tried to focus on the movie, but he was acutely aware of Steve's presence next to him. This wasn't helped by Steve putting his hand on Bucky's leg. It was a light touch - he couldn't even really feel it - but just seeing that it was there was enough to set him on edge.

Before long, Steve leaned in and started kissing Bucky's neck. "Steve," Bucky hissed.

"What?" he replied innocently. "It's not like you're witnessing a masterpiece of American cinema here. Might as well enjoy ourselves a little."

"You're the worst," Bucky complained. The truth was that it was exhilarating to behave like a couple of dumb teenagers, just because they could. He felt young all of a sudden. He was only 25, but he had always felt much older, the weight of everything that had happened to him maturing him. In Steve's presence, he felt lighter.

Steve kissed him, effectively shutting him up. Not that Bucky minded, he kissed back with enthusiasm, much to Steve's delight. If any of the other people in the theater were bothered by what they were getting up to, Bucky didn't notice. He was completely absorbed in Steve.

Steve's hand crept steadily up his thigh, but he didn't notice until it was too late and Steve's palm covered the bulge in his pants. Though Steve was much shorter and lighter than Bucky, he felt constrained. "Stop," he said, breaking the kiss and pushing Steve away harshly. Bucky was breathing heavily. He tried to get it under control again, but nothing seemed to calm him down. He tried closing his eyes, but images flashed in his mind that he had been trying to forget about.

"Bucky?" Steve said in a small voice. He didn't respond. "I'm sorry," Steve said. He reached out to take Bucky's hand, but Bucky flinched in response. Steve dropped his hand in his lap dejectedly. "Sorry," he repeated.

"Have to go," Bucky mumbled. He felt like he was going to throw up. He stood up and headed for the exit. Maybe the cold air would do him good.

Steve appeared moments later. "You want to go home?" Steve asked.

Bucky wondered why Steve was still here. "Yeah, just want to go," he said.

"Do you want me to go with you?" Steve asked. He looked so lost.

Bucky frowned, then shook his head.

"Are you sure? You okay to get home?" Concern laced Steve's voice. Bucky couldn't understand why he cared so much.

He nodded and left.

\--------------------------

That night, Wanda knocked on his door. He considered pretending not to be home, but he could use someone to talk to.

"So, how was it?" she asked as soon as Bucky opened the door. Her face fell when she saw his expression. "What happened?"

Bucky shrugged, left the door open for her to follow him inside. He sat on the floor and Wanda sat down next to him. "I fucked up," he said. It was so stupid of him to think for even a minute that they could be normal. The whole afternoon, he'd been kidding himself.

"What do you mean?" Wanda asked.

"I don't know. It was all fine, but then he started touching me and all I could think of was _him_." He started shaking. "Steve's not gonna want to deal with any of this shit."

"He said that?" Wanda said, incredulous.

"No, but who would?" Nobody in their right mind would choose to be with someone like Bucky. He'd allowed himself to momentarily forget about that, but now reality was setting in again.

Wanda frowned. "What did he do when this happened?"

"He apologized," Bucky said slowly. "Asked me if I wanted him to walk me home."

"That doesn't sound like a guy who's been scared off," she said.

Bucky sighed. "He was just being polite." It was the only reasonable explanation. His phone buzzed. He'd been ignoring it ever since he came home.

"Maybe that's him?" Wanda suggested.

"Of course it's him," he snapped. "To tell me he's done." He hadn't been able to bring himself to look.

"Hey, I just wanna help," Wanda said, very deliberately keeping her voice calm.

"Sorry," Bucky mumbled.

"That's okay," she said. "For what it's worth, I really don't think Steve will just give up."

He couldn't believe that right now. Everything he knew told him a different story. Nothing could ever just be easy with him; it always had to be a struggle. Settling in the routine of going to the PDS meetings and seeing Steve every week made him believe that he could leave his past behind him. Of course, that wasn't how it worked. This shit would haunt him for the rest of his life. He couldn't reasonably expect that anyone would choose to be a part of that. The thought alone seemed completely ludicrous. Besides, Steve had enough on his mind already. Why would he want to invest in someone like Bucky, now that it was crystal clear that any relationship they might have was never going to come easy. He had his mom to take care of and worry about, he had his circle of friends he could go to, and Bucky was sure he wouldn't have trouble finding a relationship, if that was what he wanted. Why would he spend all that time and energy on Bucky? It made no sense.

Wanda stayed with him for a while. She tried to distract him, with little success. Eventually, he told her he just wanted to be alone, and after asking him several times if he was sure and reassuring him that it was no trouble for her to stay with him and Bucky insisting that she could go, she left.

He crawled in bed, not bothering to change into his pajamas. He just took off his skinny jeans and threw them to the side of the room.

He lay awake for hours. Finally, when he concluded he couldn't possibly feel shittier, he figured he might as well check his texts. There were 10 unread messages, all of them from Steve.

_**[Are you okay?]** _

**__**

_**[I'm really sorry]** _

****

**_[If I had known, I wouldn't have done that]_ **

****

**_[Not that it's your fault. Obviously not. I just want you to know it won't happen again]_ **

****

**_[Bucky, please answer?]_ **

****

**_[Just want to know if you're okay]_ **

****

**_[I'm worried, Buck]_ **

****

**_[Just called Wanda, she said she was with you most of the night. Glad you weren't alone]_ **

****

**_[I'm not going anywhere, Buck, not unless you want me to]_ **

****

**_[Please text me back]_ **

****

Bucky stared at the messages for a while. He began typing a text, then deleted it, started typing again, deleted again. The last text had been sent about an hour ago.

**[i'm alright]** he finally sent.

He received a reply seconds later. _**[I'm so sorry again]**_

****

**[not your fault]** Bucky typed. Steve couldn't possibly have known. **[what did wanda tell you?]** he sent. He was pretty sure Wanda wouldn't betray his trust, but he was suddenly nervous about what she might have told Steve.

It took a little longer for him to reply this time. _**[Not much. Just that she was with you and that you were upset. She said it wasn't her place to tell me anything else]**_

****

Bucky sighed in relief. **[sorry for freaking you out]**

He saw Steve typing, then deleting, typing again. It took a few minutes for him to receive a reply. _**[Jesus, you have nothing to apologize for. Never apologize for setting boundaries, alright? We should talk about this some more. Maybe not now cause I don't know about you, but my brain is kinda fried right now. But I don't want to cross a line again]**_

****

Bucky stared at his phone. Steve was still talking about the future, as if nothing had changed. He couldn't quite wrap his head around it. **[yeah i'm pretty tired]** He avoided the other parts of Steve's text. He wasn't quite ready to discuss any of this.

_**[Okay, hope you can get some sleep. x]** _

****

He did fall asleep a few hours later, but it was interrupted by a nightmare. The sun was already coming up and he decided to give up on sleeping. He dragged himself to the shower and let the warm water relax his tense muscles a little. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some discussions of triggers in this chapter and allusions to sexual trauma, but no graphic descriptions.

Steve hadn't been able to go to sleep, not even when Wanda had told him that Bucky had made it home okay. She had said Bucky was very upset and worried that Steve wouldn't want to see him again, which broke Steve’s heart. As if he would blame Bucky for his past experiences.

He was so relieved when Bucky finally texted him back, though he couldn't quite believe that Bucky was apologizing to _him_. It became apparent that he had greatly underestimated the kinds of things Bucky struggled with. He wasn't sure what exactly had happened to Bucky, but judging by his response, it was likely someone had touched him without his consent. Anger bubbled up in him just at the thought of someone knowingly hurting Bucky.

He had to know how to avoid hurting Bucky in the future.

**[Is it okay if I come over today?]** he texted. He had to see Bucky, talk to him.

It took ten long minutes for Bucky to respond. _**[yeah, i'm home till 4.30]**_

****

**[omw]** Steve texted back.

He rushed over to Bucky apartment and knocked on his door. Bucky opened almost immediately. He looked tired - he probably hadn't gotten a lot of sleep.

"Hey," Bucky said. He held the door open so Steve could enter.

"Hey," Steve said. He wanted to kiss Bucky, but it seemed like the wrong thing to do right now. "How are you doing?"

Bucky shrugged. "Fine." It was clearly a lie.

"Can we talk?" Steve asked.

Bucky tensed in response. He didn't say anything.

"I don't want this to happen again." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You don't have to tell me about what happened." The last thing he wanted to do was push Bucky. He was acutely aware that despite feeling an intense connection, they didn't actually know each other all that well. He didn't expect Bucky to magically trust him with every detail. Bucky's shoulders sagged a little at Steve's words. "I just...I guess we need to set some clear boundaries? Just so I know what's okay and what isn't."

"Why?" Bucky looked confused.

Steve frowned. "I don't want to upset you like that ever again." He thought that would have gone without saying.

Bucky shook his head. "No, I mean, why go to all this trouble?"

Steve's eyebrows shot up. If he ever found out who made Bucky feel like he wasn't worth even minimal effort, he'd punch the shit out of them. "This is no trouble, Buck." He took a deep breath. He didn't want his anger to seep out into his voice and make Bucky think it was directed at him. He sat down on the floor, leaving the chair to Bucky if he wanted. Bucky sat down on the floor opposite Steve anyway.

"So, is cuddling okay?" Steve asked. Bucky nodded. "Kissing?" Another nod. "What about kissing your neck?" Another nod. Steve sighed in relief. Assuming that Bucky was telling the truth, he hadn't done anything else to trigger him at least. He'd been worried about that ever since Bucky left the cinema.

"That's all fine," Bucky confirmed. "Just no..." He looked down at his feet.

"No sex," Steve finished, trying to sound as matter-of-factly as possible. He didn’t want to make Bucky feel awkward, even if he was uncomfortable himself. "Right?"

"Right." He didn't look at Steve.

"Anything else maybe?"

Bucky thought for a moment. He was still avoiding eye contact. "My hair," he said. "No pulling." He took a deep breath. "And no pet names."

Steve nodded. Images flooded his mind's eye, which he tried to suppress as soon as they came up. There was no point in speculating what happened to Bucky, he would just drive himself crazy. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked. He didn't think Bucky would, but just in case he did, he wanted to make sure he offered.

Bucky shook his head vigorously.

"Okay, well, if you do, I'm here, okay?"

"Thank you," Bucky said so quietly Steve almost didn't hear. He was still looking at the floor.

Steve really wanted to kick the person who did this to Bucky. Another deep breath. "Of course, any time," he said. He hugged Bucky tightly, trying to convey to him how important he was.

\--------------------------

Back home, he felt defeated. He wanted to make this right for Bucky, but there wasn't much he could do. All he _could_ do, was offer Bucky his support whenever he needed it and listen. It was frustrating.

"What's wrong?" Sarah asked. She was sitting on the couch; she'd been reading one of the books Steve had borrowed from the library, though she put it down when she saw Steve's dejected face.

He sat down next to her. "I just want to help him, but I don't know how," he began. "I thought it was just PDS stuff that bothered him, but there's all this other stuff that's messed him up and I'm beginning to wonder just how much I don't know."

Sarah frowned and reached out to Steve, wrapping an arm around him. "Sometimes it's enough to just be there for someone."

"Yeah, maybe," Steve replied. It didn't feel like enough.

\--------------------------

Steve decided to call Sam the next day. If anyone could give him sound advice, it would be Sam.

"You can come over if you want," Sam told him on the phone. "If you don't mind Nat being here."

He trusted both of them completely and Natasha had been known to have sharp insights, too. "No, that's fine," Steve said. After dinner, he took the subway to Sam and Natasha's apartment.

They had managed to rent a pretty nice space - although technically, Natasha had been the one to accomplish this. She moved in shortly after the Rising, and Sam joined her a few years later. Their interior was a mixture of styles, though none of them seemed incongruent somehow. It was a spacious apartment for the two of them. Steve had always felt right at home for some reason.

Natasha was making coffee when he came in. Sam motioned for him to sit and Steve chose one of their comfortable chairs. It was big and soft and he'd always loved that chair. Sam said on the couch across from him, Natasha joining him with her cup of coffee.

"So, what's up?" Sam asked.

Steve took a deep breath. "I'm just really worried about Bucky."

"What happened?" Natasha asked.

"You know how we thought Bucky just had some bad experiences with being PDS?" Sam and Natasha nodded. They'd talked about it after Bucky's first or second meeting. His shy and timid nature hadn't gone unnoticed and they talked about how to make him feel welcome, how to make him feel like he could open up, how to show him that he could trust them. They'd agreed to have at least one person check in with him after every meeting, so that if he wanted to share something that he might not have wanted to share with the entire group, he could have. Steve had taken it upon himself to fulfill that duty more often than not, and the more he did, the more he liked Bucky.

"It's a lot more than that," Steve continued.

Sam frowned. "How so?"

"I think he's been seriously hurt by someone," Steve said quietly. "I don't know, maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but I don't know what to do. I don't even know if he's ever told anyone exactly what happened. I think Wanda might know, but that's probably it." He was rambling a little, as he was wont to do when he was nervous. He did feel bad about sharing something so personal with others, but he trusted that whatever he said, it wouldn't leave this room.

"What made you think that?" Natasha asked, while Sam looked concerned.

"I touched him and he freaked out, bad. The only other time I've seen him like that was during that meeting, with Simon."

Natasha frowned, worrying the cup of coffee in her hands. "You think this was before or after he became PDS?"

"No idea. He doesn't want to talk about it and that's fine. We haven't known each other for that long, I get that he's not ready to talk about it to me. I guess what I'm worried about is that I'm not sure he's ever told anyone." He fumbled with the sleeves of his sweater for a while. "He was surprised that I still wanted to be with him and that I asked him what kinds of things are off-limits," he added more quietly.

"Jesus," Sam said. "He really thought you'd leave because of this?"

"I mean, he didn't say so directly. But he seemed surprised that I would put any effort into our relationship," Steve explained. He kept replaying their conversation in his head and got angrier every time he did.

Natasha finally put her cup down on the coffee table. "I don't think you can do a whole lot more than you already did. Just show him that you're there for him and that you'll respect his boundaries. If and when he wants to talk, he'll come to you. You can't force these things."

Sam listened to her intently, then turned to Steve. "Yeah, I agree. I know you're gonna worry about him cause that's what you do, but you just gotta be there for him. It sounds like he really needs someone in his corner."

He knew they were right and really, they just confirmed what he already knew and what his mom already told him. He just had to be sure that whatever move he made, it was the right one. He couldn't risk fucking this up, not when Bucky had apparently already been failed by so many people in his life.

He didn't sleep much that week. Trying to shut out the images and thoughts that invaded his mind didn't help. There was one thought in particular that he kept coming back to. Just how much had happened to Bucky to make him think that he wasn't worth fighting for at all?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another flashback and it's, well, unpleasant. There are some descriptions of torture and humiliation, excessive drinking, and self-loathing. As always, if you need a more detailed description of the events in this chapter, don't hesitate to [message me](http://hufflepuffbuckybarnes.tumblr.com/ask).

The first conscious thought he had was: Where am I? He couldn't move, he could barely see. He felt strange, as if he'd just woken up from a deep sleep. His brain was fuzzy, his mouth dry. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel but he knew this wasn't it.

After what felt like an eternity, he found his voice. It sounded strange, disconnected, as he uttered the words, "Where am I?"

A face appeared in front of him, eyes wide, mouth hanging open in shock. "You can understand us?" the face asked.

He tried to nod, but his head was restrained, just like the rest of him. "Yes," he croaked.

"Arnim! Come look at this!" the man yelled. "He's responding!"

Footsteps came closer and another face appeared in front of him. Both of them were wearing white lab coats.

"Where am I?" he repeated.

"My God," the second man said, his thick accent evident even in just those two words. He thought it sounded German.

"It's a miracle," the first man said.

"Where am I?" he tried again. He couldn't understand why they wouldn't just answer him.

Finally, the first man turned to him again. "You are in a treatment facility. You were...sick for a while." The second man scoffed at his choice of words. "A lot of people became sick. You are the first to respond to treatment." He paused for a moment, contemplating his words. "You're very special. We want to know what made _you_ respond so we can help all those other people." The man made sure to look him straight in the eye as he asked him, "Do we have your permission to continue testing you?"

It was hard to say no, especially if so many others could be helped if he said yes. He still didn't really understand what was going on, but these were doctors. Surely they'd take care of him. "Yes," he said.

They didn't ask him what his name was, or if he remembered anything, or if he had any questions about what had happened to him.

Those first few days - or it might have been weeks, he wasn't sure - passed in a haze. Memories were floating around in his mind, but he could never quite seem to grasp them, each memory escaping him the second he tried to pin it down.

They tested his pain responses, their efforts redoubling as they realized his sensitivity had greatly decreased. They cut him open to see what he looked like from the inside. They kept him restrained, lying on his stomach, to a kind of operating table that had been flipped into an upright position. His wrists and ankles were restrained by leather straps, and there was a restraint around the back of his neck. His face poked through a hole, so he could see what was going on, though his vision was greatly restricted by the padding around his face.

Once they realized he wasn't going to attack them, they let him spend his time in between tests in a cell.

After a while, he finally remembered that his name was Bucky. The second man, whose name he learned was Zola, was performing some test on him when he remembered. "My name is Bucky," he said. Zola did not respond.

Zola never really talked to him much. The other man, Karpov, was more likely to answer his questions, though he still didn't know what this mysterious illness was. He asked every couple of days, but the answer always remained the same: "I can't tell you."

One of the first things he remembered aside from his name was a young man named Tony. In his memories, his eyes were always twinkling. He was sure he had been close with Tony. Many of his memories revolved around just the two of them. He wondered if maybe he'd had a brother.

The more time passed, the more uncomfortable he became with his predicament. He wasn't in pain - not unless they tried to elicit a pain response through extreme measures, anyway - but it felt wrong to be tied to this table, naked and exposed, every single day.

"What if I don't want to do this anymore?" he said, finally voicing his concerns to Karpov one day. Zola was off in a different room, out of earshot.

Karpov came to stand in front of him, looking him in the eye. "We won't force you, Bucky." Karpov was the only one who used his name. Zola barely even looked at him. "But if you quit now, think of all the people that could have been helped. You're the only one who can help them."

He felt guilty for even asking to quit. Of course he couldn't, not without sealing the fate of God knows how many people. "I want to help," Bucky said.

"I know you do, Bucky. Because you are a good person," Karpov said, smiling.

Yes, I'm a good person, Bucky thought. So he'd allow them to strap him to this table for as long as was needed.

Still, there was a nagging feeling that this wasn't right. If he was enduring this humiliation, he at least wanted to know if it was actually working. He decided to ask Zola, since Karpov wouldn't answer him. He'd tried often enough to know by now that he was never going to get an answer from him. "What is this sickness?" he asked.

Zola scoffed, the same way he did when Karpov had first told him he was sick. "You're not sick. You died and you came back and killed people."

For the first time, Bucky was glad he was restrained, for he was sure he would have fallen to the ground if he hadn't been. His head was spinning, his breathing erratic. "I...what?"

"You. Died," Zola repeated flatly. He didn't seem to realize that Bucky's whole world was slowly falling apart.

"I killed people?"

Zola rolled his eyes and sighed impatiently. "I don't have time for this," he muttered, and stopped answering Bucky's questions.

Later, when he was alone with Karpov, he confronted him about it. "Why didn't you tell me I killed people?"

Karpov cursed under his breath. "You weren't supposed to know about that."

"That wasn't my question," Bucky insisted.

"Because you don't need to know! All you need to know is that you are valuable to this research. The end."

Bucky felt as if someone had kicked him in the chest. He wondered what else they kept from him because "he didn't need to know." He felt sick.

Karpov composed himself. "You are doing a lot of good, Bucky. More than you could possibly ever know. More and more people like you are responding to the drugs, thanks to the research we're doing right here. We couldn't have done this without you. We need you."

Bucky didn't respond. He waited until Karpov untied his restraints and he could go back to his cell. The thought of killing people made him sick. He knew he had taken some lives in the war, he remembered that much, but that was different. In a war, soldiers fought in the full knowledge that it was kill or be killed. Those were the rules of war. But the people he killed weren't part of a war. He took a shaky breath. He was a zombie. And zombies always killed innocent people.

He wondered where these other zombies were, the ones who had also responded to the drugs. Were they in the same building? Were they being experimented on as well? If so, why hadn't Bucky been allowed to see them? The only people he'd been in contact with this entire time were Karpov and Zola.

He wondered if Tony was alright. He desperately wanted to talk to someone who knew him, who would care how he was doing, who would want to know that he was still alive. But when he asked Karpov to look into contacting Tony he'd declined.

"We can't put what we're doing here at risk, Bucky. It's too important," Karpov had said.

Bucky was still unsure of what exactly was being accomplished here, but it felt like too great a risk to just abandon the mission. He just wished they'd keep him updated on the progress, tell him how far they'd come or which problems they still faced, so he'd understand why they kept cutting him open and pumping his system full of drugs he'd violently reject minutes later.

He became lonelier with each passing day. As more memories resurfaced, the more he realized that life could be different, that he had once had friends and a family, that even living with foster families who were practically strangers to him hadn't left him this starved for contact.

One day, as he was strapped to the table, Zola and Karpov both working on him, they were called away on an emergency. Bucky had no idea what the emergency was. They didn't tell him, nor did they tell him how long they'd be. They left him, restrained, naked, humiliated.

At first, he thought they'd be back soon. They'd either solve the emergency quickly or they'd realize it would take longer than they'd expected and come back to release him. But they didn't come back. They'd turned off the lights as they left, leaving Bucky in complete darkness. Every sound set him on edge.

He yelled for help, but there was nobody around to hear him. He was all alone. He let out a soft sob and it was like the floodgates had opened. He couldn't stop crying.

He knew then that they didn't care about him at all. He'd been telling himself that Zola just wasn't a people-person. That Karpov just wanted what was best for him and thought he was protecting Bucky by hiding things from him. That both of them just wanted to help. But it was clear now that they didn't care what happened to him at all. He was little more than a lab rat to them.

He had no idea how long he'd been strapped to the table by the time Karpov finally returned. He had no sense of time in the dark.

"I want to stop," Bucky said in between sobs as he saw Karpov appear in his line of vision.

Karpov was silent for a minute. "We need you, Bucky. Now more than ever."

"No, I want out. You can't treat me like this. It's inhumane." He wasn't sure of much, but he knew this much.

Karpov's eyes turned cold. "You're not human, Bucky. Not anymore."

He might have been okay if Zola had said this, but not Karpov. It was as if someone had dunked a gallon of ice water on him. In a way, he was glad Karpov had shown his true self. At least now he knew he was right. They didn't care about him. "I want out," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "I want out, I want out, I want out," he repeated. He was bordering on hysterical.

"Fine," Karpov said.

Bucky raised his eyebrows. He hadn't expected it to be this easy. A thought that had been hovering at the edge of his consciousness occurred to him. "I'm not the only one, am I?"

Karpov laughed mirthlessly. "Of course not." He loosened the straps around Bucky's limbs, releasing him.

As he stepped away from the table, his limbs were stiff after being restrained for so long. Not for the first time, he wondered what else they kept from him. "Was I the first?" He had to know. He felt he might lose his mind if that part had been a lie. Being the first one to respond to the drug had been a major motivator; if he was the first, there must have been something in his biology that could help others.

"Yes," Karpov said, looking him straight in the eye. "You were the first."

\--------------------------

Bucky was released into a larger facility nearby. He got a double room, though he didn't have a roommate yet. The facility was still half empty; they were clearly prepared for many more people to be admitted here.

He still felt alone. He couldn't connect to the others at the treatment center. It was an ugly feeling, but he resented them for not having to go through the pain and humiliation he'd suffered. Why were they given a break? Why hadn't Zola and Karpov singled them out? He knew now they had selected others, so what was it about those subjects that made them fit to be tested on?

To make matters even more frustrating, none of the staff would answer his questions about the Starks. He couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed to know how they were doing and it felt infantilizing that they wouldn't just tell him what was going on, or at the very least offer him an explanation.

Therapy sessions were mandatory at the center. Most of it was group therapy, though he had occasional private sessions. He still couldn't remember anything he did in his untreated state, so all he could talk about were his memories from when he was still alive. He wouldn't go near his time with Karpov and Zola. He was embarrassed that he'd even let it get that far, that he hadn't realized sooner that they didn't think of him as human. He couldn't face that shame and especially not here, in a treatment center named after the scientists who discovered the drug that finally subdued the undead.

The days passed slowly, though he was glad to be free of the tests and experiments. At least he could go anywhere he pleased within this building and nobody paid him much attention. He was fine with that.

More and more people began to arrive, the center slowly filling up. There was increasing talk of what would happen to them. Were they going to stay in this center for the rest of their lives? And just how long would the rest of their lives be? As far as Bucky knew, nothing could kill them except a shot to the head. They couldn't die of natural causes because there was nothing left in them to deteriorate; their insides were dead, decayed.

Talk began about rehabilitation programs. Those who behaved well and seemed well-adjusted might be allowed back in society, on several conditions of course. The most important one: never skip a dose of their medication. The second rule: don't cause any disturbances. It was unclear what exactly constituted a disturbance, but it was made clear that should someone report them, they'd be sent back to the treatment center with few prospects of ever getting out. The third condition: someone would have to vouch for them, take them in. They weren't allowed to live on their own, not at first anyway. Someone had to be there to monitor them.

Maybe he'd finally get to see the Starks again. He couldn't think of anyone else who could take him in. If there was anyone else out there who'd be able and willing to take him in, surely he would have remembered by now. There were still some gaps in his pre-Rising memory, but he felt like he could construct the narrative of his life pretty well. His memories from after the Rising were still largely missing. There were flashes of blood and violence, but nothing sharp enough to create a coherent picture in his mind.

They began implementing the program a few weeks later. They'd start with visits from family or friends. Only those who had been at the center from the beginning were selected, Bucky among them. He asked them to contact the Starks. A few days later, he was told Tony would visit him. For the first time since waking up tied to that table, he was excited. He would finally see his friend again.

One of the guards gave him contacts and cover up mousse, to make him look more human. He was told he'd have to wear this every day if he was allowed to leave; it would be one of the conditions of his release. He was escorted to the common room. There were several people scattered around the room. They all seemed so happy to be reunited. Tony was sitting at the far end of the room. He looked a lot older than Bucky remembered; a weariness had settled on his face.

Tony looked up as Bucky approached his table. Bucky had expected a hug, or happiness, or anything but the sadness in Tony's eyes as he took in Bucky's figure. He didn't stand up, didn't say anything as Bucky sat down.

"Hey Tony," Bucky said.

"Hey," Tony replied. He grimaced as he said it.

Bucky's heart sank. Was he really that repulsive? He couldn't understand why Tony of all people, the one person who'd stood by him through thick and thin, would behave this way.

Tony took a deep breath, composing himself. "How are you doing?" he finally asked.

"Alright I guess," Bucky answered, shrugging. "It'd be nice to get out of here, though," he added hopefully. Whatever was going on with Tony, he was sure they could get past it with time, once Bucky was released from the center and he'd be living with Tony. "So what’s up with you?" He couldn't wait to find out what Tony had been up to in the intervening years.

To Bucky's surprise, tears swam in Tony's eyes as he struggled to answer the question. "Not much."

There was something hovering in the air that Bucky couldn't quite place. Tony was keeping something from him, he was sure of it. Suddenly, Howard and Maria's absence seemed suspect. "Where are your parents?"

Tony took a few shaky breaths, opening and closing his mouth several times as if to speak but not saying anything. "You came home. That night," Tony began. He looked like he was about to throw up. "I can't do this," he said after a long silence. "I can't fucking do this." He got up and walked towards the exit.

Bucky was stunned. "Why? What did I do?" Bucky asked. "What did I do?" he repeated, louder this time. "Just tell me what happened!" He was yelling now, but Tony kept walking. Guards restrained him and he thrashed against their hold. Why would nobody just tell him the truth? It took three guards to subdue him and return him to his room.

\--------------------------

He'd been sure that that was it: no release for him. With the way Tony had acted, he didn't think he'd ever take Bucky in. He still couldn't quite remember what happened, but Tony's words had triggered something in him. Some of the flashes he could place now. He recognized the hallway, the shapes lying on the floor. He hated himself more than ever. How could he do this to people that he loved? He couldn't blame Tony for being disgusted by him.

But a week later, he received the news that Tony would vouch for him. He would take Bucky in, look after him. As Bucky came to meet him in the common room, he extended his hand towards Bucky. Bucky took it, surprised at the gesture.

The car ride home was awkward to say the least. Neither of them knew what to say. Tony just blasted music in an attempt to drown out the silence.

They arrived at a luxurious apartment building. Tony had an entire floor to himself. Bucky wondered what kind of job would allow for this kind of extravagance, until he realized that Tony would have inherited his father's fortune.

Tony had prepared a room for Bucky. There were no personal touches, but it had everything Bucky could ever need. Tony had bought him a laptop and a smartphone. A few books had been left on one of the shelves. A large TV hung opposite a comfortable-looking couch, an Xbox and several games placed on a shelf underneath the TV. A few generic art prints adorned the walls.

When the time came to administer the drug, he didn't dare ask Tony to help him. He'd figure it out on his own.

The weight of what had happened, of what Bucky had done, was oppressive. It stifled every square inch of the apartment. Tony could barely look him in the eye. Bucky could hardly blame him.

At dinner, Tony ate while Bucky sat awkwardly at the table. There was no way they'd ever get past this if they kept feeding the elephant in the room with their silence.

After dinner, as Tony sat in the living room, reading a book, Bucky felt the need to do _something_. "I'm sorry," he said. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

"Yeah, alright," Tony said dismissively.

"No, I need to say this. I didn't mean to - I didn't know what..." Everything sounded like an excuse, but nothing could excuse what he had done. "I'm so sorry."

"I said, alright," Tony repeated.

"If I could, I would change what happened." He had to convey to Tony how sorry he was, how much he wished he could take it back.

"I don't wanna talk about it, alright?" Tony snapped.

\--------------------------

Tony tried, he really did. Some days were better. They'd watch a movie together and it would almost feel like old times as they laughed at the same jokes. But for the most part, they couldn't communicate. Tony couldn't talk about his parents' deaths and Bucky couldn't find a way to breach the topic without Tony shutting it down in two seconds flat. It was as if Tony desperately wanted to forget about what happened, but Bucky's presence made that impossible.

He made sure Tony would never see him without his makeup and contacts. He wasn't sure how Tony would respond if he saw Bucky in his natural state. The first thing he did every morning was apply his makeup and he went to sleep with his contacts in, just in case he'd be woken up in the middle of the night. It hurt his eyes, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

The apartment was big enough that they could practically live separate lives if they wanted to. Bucky began keeping to himself after a few weeks, not wanting to face the pain in Tony's eyes. It didn't relieve the oppressive atmosphere, but at least neither of them had to face it head on while they avoided each other.

A couple of months after Bucky moved in, Tony got drunk. Very drunk. Bucky found him like that in the living room. He was so out of it, Bucky wondered if he'd even notice that Bucky was there.

"Do you even remember it?" Tony asked quietly. Apparently he wasn't that far gone.

"Not all of it," Bucky admitted.

"You killed them," he slurred.

"I know."

"You were like a brother to me." He made a sound that was halfway between a sob and a hiccup.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I don't want to hate you. But I do." Tears were streaming down his face. He wiped at them with his shirtsleeves. "I hate you."

Bucky couldn't find it in him to defend himself. What defense could he possibly have? It didn't matter that he wasn't aware of his actions. Tony lost his parents because Bucky killed them. And perhaps worst of all: Bucky got a second chance at life, while Howard and Maria would never come back.

"I don't want to see your fucking face every fucking day," Tony continued. "I can't fucking do this."

Bucky stood there, frozen to the spot. He watched Tony pass out on the couch. He couldn't bring Howard and Maria back, but he could at least try to give Tony some peace. He packed what few belongings he had and left.

\--------------------------

Tony woke up the next morning to find Bucky gone. He thought he'd feel relieved, but he didn't. His parents were still gone, and now, so was Bucky. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating yesterday, it's been a bit of a week. I wish I had a happier chapter lined up for you guys, cause god knows we could use it, but alas. 
> 
> There's some more mentions of Bucky's time with Zola and Karpov in this chapter, as well as harassment.

The conversation with Steve had stressed Bucky out. He was glad and relieved that they talked, but when Steve had asked him if they could talk, he'd been sure that was it. Steve would tell him that this was too much, that he couldn't deal with whatever shit Bucky had going on and it was nice while it lasted, but they weren't going anywhere. Instead, what he got was Steve asking him how to best accommodate his issues.

He hadn't even really thought about it, the possibility of something like this happening never even having occurred to him. Still, he couldn't really talk openly about it. He wouldn't even know where to begin. And besides, Steve might be considerate now, but Bucky wasn't convinced that he would still be so compassionate once he found out what Bucky had done. It might be the thing that would finally push Steve away.

He saw Steve several times a week at least, and always on Thursdays at the meetings. He'd gone out and bought a small sofa, which filled up his living room a bit more. Steve was delighted when he saw it. "Now we can finally cuddle properly," he'd said. Steve proved true to his word: he was a big cuddler. At every opportunity, he'd throw his arms around Bucky and snuggle up. Bucky reveled in it, having craved this kind of contact for so long.

One afternoon, as they were browsing a thrift store, Steve asked him to meet his mom. "She really wants to meet you," Steve explained.

Bucky hesitated for a moment. Meeting parents was a serious thing and though he certainly took their relationship seriously, he was a little intimidated at the prospect. Steve looked at him with so much hope in his eyes that he couldn't possibly say no. "Okay," Bucky agreed.

He went over to Steve's apartment the next day. He couldn't even remember the last time he met a boyfriend's parents. It must have been in high school. Steve greeted him with a kiss at the door. The apartment was quite small for the two of them. There were two tiny bedrooms on the far side of the apartment and the living room was just big enough for a couch, a coffee table, a few small cabinets, and a small dinner table pushed up against the wall with three chairs around it. The kitchen was also quite small. It didn't consist of more than the absolute basics.

The apartment felt lived in; perhaps in part because it was so small, there were personal items strewn all over the apartment. Bucky spotted some paint brushes and half-empty tubes of paint lying around, as well as a bunch of magazines and books.

Sarah was sitting on the couch. Bucky hadn't been sure what to expect, but he couldn't deny that she looked very ill. She was so pale that she only differed a few shades from her son and she looked extremely tired, heavy bags under her eyes. Steve hadn't let on much about his mother's health, just that she wasn't doing well. It seemed to Bucky that it was a lot worse than just "not doing well."

She extended her hand as she saw Bucky enter the room. "You must be Bucky. I'm Sarah," she said.

"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Rogers," Bucky said.

She laughed. "You're gonna make me feel old. Please call me Sarah. Sit down, sweetie," she said, patting the couch so he sat down next to her. "Steve, honey, could you make me some tea?"

Steve immediately walked over to the kitchen and began boiling a pot of water.

As soon as he was in the kitchen, she turned to him conspiratorially. "You know, he talks about you all the time."

Bucky looked at her, wide-eyed. "He does?"

"Hm-hmm. Never shuts up about you," she said lightly. "He comes home every day with a spark in his eyes I haven't seen in a long time," she continued, more serious now. "Thank you for that."

Bucky was stunned into silence. How was he supposed to respond to that? He had always thought of himself as a burden to Steve, that Steve was this incredibly generous person for not being scared away by all his shit, but now Sarah was telling him that Steve had actually been doing better since they met.

"What are you guys talking about?" Steve yelled from the kitchen.

"Nothing," Sarah yelled back.

"Bullshit. I know you're talking about me." Steve didn't sound particularly upset; more amused than anything else.

"Okay, fine, I was telling Bucky that you never shut up about him," Sarah replied.

Steve grumbled something Bucky didn't quite catch. Finally, Steve reappeared with a cup of tea in his hands and handed it to his mom. He grabbed a chair from the dining table and sat down on the chair next to Bucky. Sarah asked Bucky about his favorite books and if he had any recommendations for her. He named some of his favorites, some of which she'd already read, but others were unfamiliar to her.

Sarah told some stories from Steve's childhood, most of them involving him getting beaten up by bullies or getting into trouble with his teachers for questioning their methods.

"So, you really haven't changed much?" Bucky asked. He could imagine Steve as a kid surprisingly well, all barely contained anger in a small frame, too large to contain his big heart.

"I'm much cuter now," Steve replied, completely deadpan.

Sarah snorted and grabbed a picture from the side-table next to the couch. "Let's let Bucky be the judge of that." She handed the picture to Bucky.

It was very clearly Steve, though it was hard to guess his age. He looked so small, but his eyes were alert and they betrayed either a precocious child or a child who was older than he looked. His eyes were bright blue. It was a shock to see such bright eyes when he had gotten so used to that flat, pale gray-white color. One thing was for sure: no contacts would be able to do that shade of blue justice. Even alive, Steve had been quite pale. He'd mentioned to Bucky that he was sick a lot - that his various illnesses was what killed him, in fact - so that explained his pallid color.

"I don't know, you're pretty cute in this picture," Bucky said.

Steve made the biggest eyes Bucky had ever seen. "Really?"

Bucky laughed at the face Steve made. "Okay, you're pretty cute now too."

Steve grinned and leaned in for a quick peck on the lips. Bucky couldn't quite believe how easy it was to be around Steve and his mom. He felt right at home from the start.

Eventually, Sarah had to take a nap and Steve led Bucky to his bedroom. Steve's room was a bit cluttered, the space not big enough to contain all his things. A few sketches were strewn across his desk.

"Can I?" Bucky asked, reaching out for the sketches. Steve nodded, fidgeting with his sweater as he watched Bucky look at his sketches. Bucky handled them carefully, almost reverently. They were absolutely beautiful portraits of Sarah, Peggy and Angie, and one of himself. He stared at his own likeness for a long time. This was how Steve saw him, with a soft smile playing around his lips. He looked good in this portrait - Steve had made him look far more flattering than he looked in reality.

The other portraits were stunning as well. They looked so lifelike, as if their subjects could jump off the page any time, despite them being in black and white.

"These are amazing, Steve."

"Thank you," Steve said bashfully.

"You drew these from memory?" He'd certainly never posed for Steve.

"Yeah, yours was mostly from memory. I used a picture as a reference, though." Steve stared at his own feet. "I hope I did it justice."

Bucky closed what little distance was between them and kissed him softly. "Of course you did." He continued kissing him and Steve walked him back, until his knees hit the edge of the bed and he stumbled, landing on the bed. Steve wasted no time to sit in his lap.

"This okay?" Steve asked.

Bucky nodded. "Definitely okay."

Steve kissed him passionately, coaxing Bucky's mouth open with his tongue. Bucky happily let him take control for a while. When Steve finally sat back on Bucky's thighs, he laughed softly. "Your makeup is all messed up."

"Shit, really?"

"Yeah, you look all debauched," Steve said, eyes twinkling mischievously. "It's a good look on you."

Bucky rolled his eyes at him, though he kind of liked the compliment. He gently pushed Steve off his lap and looked in the mirror. Steve was right, the makeup was smeared around his mouth, leaving no guesses as to what they'd been doing. "You got anything to fix this?"

"You could take it off," Steve suggested. When he saw Bucky's face, he added, "Okay, okay. I got some right here." He handed Bucky the familiar jar.

Once Bucky looked presentable again, they sat and talked for a while, until it was time for Bucky to go home and get ready for work.

\--------------------------

It was a Thursday night, after their weekly meeting. The meeting itself had been pretty uneventful, just the usual of people sharing experiences and Steve going off on a rant about their exploitation.

Steve had gone with Bucky when the meeting was over, so here they were, on Bucky's couch and Bucky found himself once again with a handful of Steve in his lap. Bucky's shirt was riding up a little, one of Steve's hands resting low on Bucky's back. One of Steve's fingers brushed along the scar on his spine - a leftover from the experiments by Zola and Karpov - by accident.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Steve said.

"It's fine," Bucky said. It wasn't like it hurt.

"What happened?" Steve asked quietly. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he added quickly. Steve moved off his lap, looking at him intently.

This part of his life was hard to talk about. He'd never even told Wanda what happened. But that was precisely what made him want to talk about it now. He'd kept this in for so long, the words were just about ready to burst out of his mouth. "They did experiments on me," he began. It sounded ridiculous, but it was the only way to explain.

"Before or...?" Steve looked horrified.

"After. I was the first to respond to the drug. So they wanted to keep testing me. And I agreed." His voice was flat, devoid of emotion or inflection.

"Can I see?" Steve asked. It was an open question, Bucky knew he could say no.

Bucky considered for a moment, then took off his shirt. If Steve was going to be disgusted with him, better sooner than later. He turned away from Steve so he wouldn't have to see his reaction. He wasn't sure he'd be ready for that.

Steve gasped at the sight of Bucky's back. He knew what it looked like, had caught glimpses of it in the mirror more times than he cared to count. His back had been completely cut open and sewn back together inexpertly, the stitches still visible, like a broken rag doll.

Steve ran his fingers down Bucky's spine, next to the scar, lightly. He couldn't feel it, but he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. "Why would you agree to something like this?"

"They told me I could help others." He took a shaky breath. "Had to do some good. Give back."

Steve gently tugged on his shoulder. "Buck, look at me." When Bucky turned around, still steeling himself for the worst, Steve took his face in both hands. "There's nothing you could've done that would require this as payment."

"You don't know that," Bucky said harshly.

"Then tell me, Buck. What could you possibly have done to justify this?" Steve asked. He dropped one of his hands to grab Bucky's hand.

Bucky let out a sob. The only other person he'd told was Wanda. Steve made him feel so safe, but he wasn't sure if he could trust that feeling. A part of him still thought he was being tricked into telling the truth, only to be burned later. But Steve looked at him so earnestly, it was hard not to believe him. He sat down on the couch again, Steve following suit. "I killed people," he said, so quietly that he wondered if Steve could even hear him.

"All of us did," Steve began, but Bucky interrupted him by shaking his head vigorously.

"People I loved," Bucky continued. His breathing was uneven. "They took care of me after my parents..."

Steve looked at him, wide-eyed with shock, and Bucky was sure this was it, this was the thing that would push Steve away. Next thing he knew, he was pulled into a hug. "It wasn't your fault."

Bucky smiled wryly. "Try telling that to their son." This wasn't something that empty words could fix. At the treatment center, his therapist had him repeat "I am a Partially Deceased Syndrome Sufferer and what I did in my untreated state is not my fault" over and over again. The words meant little to him when he first said them, but the more he repeated them, they became emptier still. It didn't matter that Bucky hadn't intended to kill them, that he would never have killed them under normal circumstances. He still ruined Tony's life. "He was my best friend," Bucky added. He needed Steve to know just how fucked up it was. "I killed his parents in front of him."

Steve pulled out of the hug to look Bucky in the eye. "I'm sure he knows you wouldn't have done this if..."

"Does that matter?" Bucky shot back, interrupting Steve. "I still hurt him." He wouldn't be let off the hook by talk of intent. He knew Tony knew he didn't _mean_ to kill Howard and Maria; he wouldn't have taken Bucky in otherwise. It did nothing to change the fact that Howard and Maria were dead and their blood was on Bucky's hands.

"Of course it matters!" Steve said, fire blazing in his eyes. It was the same look he got whenever he disagreed with something that was said during a meeting. Stubborn jaw set, nostrils flared slightly, ready to fight anyone who disagreed with him. "You weren't in control of your actions, you can't be held responsible for them!"

"Bullshit," Bucky said. This was the crux of everything he had ever disagreed on with Steve. At every meeting, Steve argued that they deserved to be treated like normal human beings because they weren't responsible for what they did for the Rising. And every meeting, Bucky silently disagreed. He'd thought Steve wouldn't feel this way if he knew what kind of hurt they caused. But now Steve had heard the truth and he was still arguing the same point. It was infuriating. "This isn't about who's responsible. It's about the pain _we_ caused, whether we wanted to or not. Do you think Tony's pain is going to go away, just because I wasn't in control of my actions? Do you really think any of that matters to him?" His voice rose in volume with every word. "Do you even know how hard he tried to let things go back to the way they were before the Rising? He tried to forgive me, but no matter how you spin this, the fact still remains that his parents are dead and I'm the cause. You can't fix this with your bullshit activist rhetoric. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, Steve."

Steve had let go of his hand somewhere in the middle of this rant. He looked hurt, his lower lip trembling slightly and his eyes wide.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Bucky said when he realized he'd just attacked everything Steve worked and stood for. "I shouldn't have said that."

Steve took a long time to answer. His replies were usually so quick, they always seemed to be right there on the tip of his tongue. "I didn't know you felt that way," he finally said.

"I don't think it's bullshit," Bucky amended. He struggled to find the right words to explain how he felt. "It's just...it's not always about who's responsible. We've done a lot of damage and it's not right to just forget about that."

"I'm not saying we should forget about it. I never did. I just don't see the point of wallowing in guilt when we can't change what happened." He ran his hand through his hair, a sign Bucky had come to associate with anxiety. "Have you talked to Tony since?" he asked carefully.

Bucky huffed in response. "Doubt he wants to hear from me." He hadn't even really considered it. He missed Tony, but the thought of reaching out to him was so far away, he couldn't imagine them re-establishing contact.

"Does he know about the experiments?" Steve asked in the same careful tone of voice.

Bucky laughed hollowly. "Fuck no. Haven't told anyone." Until now.

Steve's jaw dropped a little. The sight would be comical if the topic hadn't been so serious. "Why?"

Bucky shrugged, trying to be casual but failing, his uneven breathing giving him away. He couldn't put into words how he felt about it. He felt humiliated and embarrassed that he had even agreed to becoming a guinea pig, but then he also felt conflicted whether he even deserved to feel that way. Maybe he should never have quit the experiments. Maybe they would've found a permanent cure if he hadn't quit. Maybe people like Steve wouldn't have to deal with side effects if he'd kept going. He felt a few tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Oh, Buck," Steve said, pulling him into a hug again. "I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine." He stroked Bucky's hair until he calmed down a little.

"I'm sorry I said those things," Bucky said against Steve's neck.

"It's okay." He kissed Bucky's cheek, slowly edging towards his mouth. Steve kissed him softly, gently, taking his time to convey everything he wanted to convey.

Bucky's shoulders sagged in relief as he realized that this was not going to drive Steve away. He was still here, holding Bucky close.

\--------------------------

Things began looking up for Bucky. He grew more confident that Steve would be there for him no matter what. He even began pitching in at meetings every now and then, much to everyone's surprise. Sam patted him on the back after the meeting, looking very proud of Bucky. For the first time in a long time, he actually felt like he was going to be okay.

When he asked Wanda to help him find some stuff for his apartment, she looked like she was about to jump through the roof with excitement.

"I thought you'd never ask!" she exclaimed. She dragged him to a bunch of stores Bucky had never even entered and convinced him to buy a bunch of stuff he really didn't need. She told him to buy some plants because "they're simple and they improve your apartment by 150%."

The end result was an apartment that actually looked like it was inhabited, the new decorations making the whole space look more lively. Wanda had tried to convince Bucky to buy some throw pillows for his couch and when he wouldn't budge, she just bought them for him instead. He had to hand it to her: their brightly colored patterns made his apartment look a little less dull.

The only downer on his day was his job. A new guy, Jack, had started working at the warehouse a week earlier and the second he found out Bucky was PDS, he spoke up loudly so everyone - especially Bucky - would hear. "What is this thing doing here?"

Nobody said anything. The others all seemed uncomfortable with his hostility, but they weren't uncomfortable enough to actually do something about it. Bucky tried to shake it off and just concentrate on his job. But Jack wouldn't let up. Whenever Bucky struggled with something because of his arm, Jack would snicker loudly. He'd make snide remarks about "that dead guy" or call him a rotter or some other slur.

Over the course of that week, it became harder to push down his anger. He was just trying to do his job and keep his head down. It wasn't even as though he was trying to befriend these people, he just wanted to get his shift over with and go home. He tried to focus on that: he'd be meeting Steve at home. He just had a couple of hours to go. He could do this. 

But when Jack bumped into him roughly and clearly on purpose, making Bucky lose his balance and almost fall over, he lost it. His coworkers were standing around, looking at the both of them. They had seen what happened, but none of them spoke up. Their silence only angered Bucky more. "What the fuck?" Bucky yelled.

Jack turned around. "Oh, it speaks!" he said in a mocking, sing-song voice. "Did I hurt you?" he added in a childish tone. "Didn't think you dead assholes could get hurt in the first place."

Anger clouded Bucky's mind, his vision whiting out. He pushed Jack, hard. "Fuck you!" he spat.

Jack was shocked as he tried to regain his balance. "It attacked me! You all saw it!" he said to the people now gathered around them.

Bucky's supervisor was among them. She'd always been reasonable, if a little stand-offish. Bucky hoped she'd take his side. She must have seen how he was provoked.

"Bucky, come with me," she said.

Jack grinned, sure of his victory. Bucky wished he'd punched him instead.

His supervisor led him to her office and gestured for him to sit down in the chair opposite her desk. "I'm sorry, Bucky. I have to report this."

What if this counted as a violation of his terms of release and he was sent back to the treatment center? He hadn't thought this through. "You saw what happened, right?" he pleaded.

She nodded, though she looked grim. "I don't have a choice. If I don't report this, he will. At least this way, I can tell them what happened, put in a good word for you."

Bucky wondered why she couldn't have come to his defense when the guy was provoking him, or at any other point during this past week, but he thought it unwise to risk angering her now. "Thank you," he said, meekly.

"You're suspended without pay until this is sorted."

"What? I need that money. I need this job," Bucky said. How long would it take for this to be cleared up? What if it took weeks, months?

"Those are the rules, Bucky. Can't change 'em."

"Is Jack getting suspended, too?" he asked.

She considered for a moment. "I haven't decided yet."

Bucky took that to mean no. He got up, managed to thank her for her time and walked out of her office. He texted Steve on his way out of the building.

**[i'll be home in a few, can you come over now?]**

_**[Yeah, sure. What happened?]** _

****

**[tell you when i see you]**

Steve was already waiting for him at the building when he got there. "You okay?" he asked.

The simple answer was no. He was absolutely fuming. He walked upstairs to his apartment and waited for Steve to close the door behind him before starting his rant. He needed to get this out of his system, _now_. "That fucker Jack pushed me, called me names, did everything he could to make me snap and I give him one fucking push and I'm suspended." He was pacing up and down the length of the room. "My supervisor's going to report me. And nobody, not a single one, said anything. They all just stood there and watched." Bucky took a deep breath to calm himself down a little, but it didn't work. "You know, I was fine with them ignoring me, at least they didn't harass me, but they can't even speak up when someone else gives me shit? And my supervisor said she's going to put in a good word for me, as if I should be so fucking thankful for that. She couldn't stop him in the moment, but now I'm expected to be grateful that she's gonna save my ass after the fact."

"It's complete bullshit," Steve agreed.

"I followed every single one of their fucking rules and this is the thanks I get? I never, _never_ , caused any trouble for them. I never missed a shift. I worked just as hard as the rest of them and then some, to make up for my fucking arm. Fuck them," Bucky concluded. Why should he still follow their rules if it made no difference anyway? He could do every single thing they asked of him and they'd still turn around and call him a rotter. They'd still take every opportunity to send him back to the treatment center and be rid of him for good.

Finally, Steve's arguments at the meetings made more sense to him. This was exactly what Steve always talked about. There was no point in compliance because it still wouldn't guarantee their safety, it still wouldn't make them human in the eyes of the living.

He looked at Steve, sitting on the couch in front of him, a frown lining his face as he regarded Bucky. He took in Steve's pallid skin, his milky gray-white eyes which, despite their deathly appearance, looked so very vivid and expressive in Steve's face.

Bucky made a snap decision and walked to the bathroom. He took out his contacts first, then wet a washcloth, like he did every night before he went to bed. The difference this time was that he looked in the mirror as he brought the wet washcloth to his face and wiped away the makeup on his right cheek, revealing the pale skin underneath.

Steve came over to see what Bucky was doing, his eyes meeting Bucky's in the mirror. Bucky kept looking at him as he revealed more and more of his skin. Steve was transfixed by the sight. The layers were thick, taking a while to remove.

Steve held out his hand. "Can I?" he asked, reaching for the washcloth.

Bucky nodded and handed it to him. Steve was gentle, even though he didn't need to be. Bucky could barely feel the texture of the cloth and he could only detect mild pressure. When all of the makeup was gone, Steve's hand came up to stroke Bucky's face. "You're so beautiful, Buck," he said before leaning in for a kiss.

He was on display like this, without his contacts and makeup, but somehow it wasn't scary. He felt freer than he ever had, right there in his tiny bathroom with Steve pressed against him. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: There are mentions of terminal illness in this chapter, as well as allusions to abusive relationships.

Seeing Bucky's face in its natural state was the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen. His eyes were clear - paler than Steve's - and his light skin created a shockingly beautiful contrast with his dark hair. Every time Bucky revealed a little bit more of himself, Steve fell even harder. Even as he found out that Bucky was prickly, prone to moody spells in which he'd lash out at anyone, he also saw the side of him that cared about the people around him, the side that just wanted to do good. Steve could forgive him for his grumpiness when he knew how much good there was in Bucky. Besides, if anyone had good reason to be grumpy, it was Bucky.

Steve couldn't begin to imagine what Bucky had gone through. All of Steve's victims had been anonymous and while he certainly felt guilty when his memories came back, he hadn't been plagued by it. It was easier to rationalize what he'd done when he couldn't even really remember his victims' faces, let alone knew who they were. But Bucky had been forced to face what he'd done, in the most personal way.

Still, that wasn't the most shocking part. The part that had really upset Steve was the experiments. It was clear Bucky wouldn't - or couldn't - talk about them much. It was also clear, from the massive scar down his back, that the experiments had been extensive. The way he'd been sewn back together was so inexpert, so careless, that Steve couldn't help but wonder how Bucky was treated by those scientists. Zola and Karpov had always been abstract names to him, the ones who were credited with the discovery of the drugs that they had to take every day, but now their names took on a whole new meaning. It made sense that they would have found the drug by experimenting; it had simply never occurred to Steve who their test subjects would be. Human experimentation was something so aligned with pure evil in his mind, he'd never even come up with the idea. But then, they weren't really considered human, he supposed. The experiments could be easily justified if the test subjects weren't human in the first place.

Bucky's experience of being experimented on had disturbed Steve in more ways than one. It made him wonder what would happen to him if he disclosed the side effects he was experiencing from the medication. Would they cart him off to the treatment center for experiments too? Had others who had already reported side effects been through this? Were they ripped from their family and friends for the sake of science, or under the pretense of their well-being?

The side-effects had become worse over time, to the point that he now sometimes blacked out completely after taking the drug. He'd taken to administering the drug himself; he didn't want to worry his mom. He hadn't told her about the worsening of his symptoms. It didn't seem worth the trouble, not while he still had things under control.

Populist politicians had been peddling stories about PDS sufferers building up resistance to the drug for months now, which Steve had always dismissed. He wasn't so sure anymore. He became hyper vigilant of any signs of going rabid. He wouldn't risk being in his mom's vicinity if that happened. So far, he mostly just felt strange in his own skin. The best way he could describe it was as if there was energy bubbling just below the surface, waiting to burst free. He felt strangely jittery, but he still hoped this would simply pass.

Just like Steve had kept his own concerns a secret, he hadn't shared any of Bucky's stories with anyone else either, not even his mother. It didn't seem right to just share this information, when it was clear that Bucky wanted to keep this to himself. Still, the knowledge of what had happened to Bucky weighed heavily on him. And worse than that, he suspected this wasn't all. None of what Bucky had told him explained why Bucky had freaked out when Steve touched him on their first date a month ago.

It certainly threw his own life in perspective. Steve definitely wasn't among the lucky ones, but Bucky's misfortune was in a league of its own. A lot of things began to make sense to Steve the more he learned about Bucky. He began to understand why Bucky had been hesitant to settle in his apartment and really make it _his_. He understood now why Bucky disagreed with Steve when it came to their responsibility for the damage done during the Rising, even though he still didn't agree with Bucky. In fact, he thought it more important than ever to impress on Bucky that none of what he did was his fault, even if he couldn't fix his mistakes.

The more time he spent with Bucky, the more things he found to appreciate. For one, he realized that Bucky was motivated by being kind more than anything else. He didn't want to hurt anyone, which was part of the reason he kept to himself, or so Steve suspected. He was different from Steve in that way, who wanted to do good out of a deep-rooted sense of justice. Secondly, Bucky was a phenomenal kisser. Steve was more than a little surprised when he realized just how much of it he could feel. He quickly became addicted to their kisses, using every opportunity to kiss Bucky. Third, Bucky had the best and worst sense of humor. It didn't happen often, but every now and then, he'd come up with some dry comment or a terrible pun and Steve loved it.

More than anything, he simply enjoyed spending time with Bucky. He was that rare type of person who actually gave you his undivided attention when you talked to him, who could make you feel like the only person in the world if he wanted to. Despite being rather secretive about his past, his face was usually an open book. There was no pretense with him and Steve loved that about him.

He was also more than a little relieved to know that his mom approved of Bucky. During his first visit, it was clear that she'd taken to Bucky immediately. When Bucky had left, she'd confirmed it by telling Steve that he'd done good. Sarah's approval meant the world to him, especially now that he was slowly having to face the reality that she wouldn't be around for much longer. She was getting sicker every day. The drug trial she'd been a part of had seemed to have positive effects at first, but before long, it became clear that it had just been a fluke. She was only getting worse.

He took her to the hospital to discuss their other options. He wasn't ready to give up. Every day, he told his mom they would keep fighting as long as they could. She always gave him the same sad smile, which Steve tried not to think about too much.

Sarah's oncologist welcomed them into his office. Dr. Banner had been a blessing to them. He was kind, but he always told them the truth. Steve appreciated that about him. He'd also never treated Steve with contempt or disdain, even managed to not look shocked when Steve first showed up for an appointment without his makeup or contacts. Steve didn't necessarily know Dr. Banner very well, but he still felt he could trust him.

"As you know, the drug trial hasn't done much to stop the progression of cancer cells," Dr. Banner began once the usual polite greetings had been passed back and forth. "I'm afraid that means we're out of options."

Steve vaguely registered Sarah squeezing his hand. It felt like his whole world had just come crashing down around him. He knew this day would come eventually, had been preparing for that eventuality, but he'd still assumed it was further down the line. All this time, he still thought he'd have more time.

"What does this mean, for my life expectancy, I mean?" Steve heard his mother ask.

"It's hard to tell. I'm reluctant to give you a number because it might create false hope or you might live much longer than I can estimate." Dr. Banner's voice sounded tinny, far away, as if Steve was standing at the end of a long tunnel and Dr. Banner and his mother were on the other side of it. "I would advise you to get your affairs in order, if you haven't already. I can't tell you what to do, of course, but it's probably best to get that out of the way as quickly as possible and enjoy the time you have left without having to worry about what happens after."

This couldn't be happening. After what might have been an eternity, Steve finally managed to look at his mother. She looked far calmer than he felt, though there were tears rolling down her cheeks.

Steve had a sudden urge to kick something, punch the wall, throw some of Dr. Banner's belongings on the floor, break _something_. The worst part was that they'd been here before, except their positions had been reversed. He remembered his doctor telling him that they couldn't do anything for him anymore, except relieve his pain. His mother had spent all of her time by his bedside, holding his hand and crying softly. Peggy had been on his other side, quiet and trying to be stoic, but clearly in pain. He hadn't wanted to die, but there was at least some part of him that was relieved that this shit would be over. Now he realized how his mother and Peggy must have felt, being told that someone they loved so much was going to die soon.

Dr. Banner gave them some time alone in his office, to process what they had just heard. They hugged and cried together for a while and Steve desperately tried to commit everything about her hugs to his memory.

\--------------------------

**[Are you home?]** Steve texted Bucky when his mom had gone to take a nap.

_**[yeah, what's up?]** _

****

**[Can you come over? Don't wanna tell you over text]** He didn't want to leave his mom alone right now, but he really needed some company.

_**[omw]** _

Less than fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang. The moment Bucky walked in the door, Steve started crying.

"What happened?" Bucky asked, startled.

"They can't do anything for her anymore," Steve said in between shaky breaths.

Bucky didn't say anything, didn't offer any consolations; he just hugged Steve tightly and let him cry. "I'm sorry," he whispered against Steve's hair.

Once Steve calmed down a little and they sat down, Bucky offered his help with anything they might need in the coming weeks or months. "I don't have a job anyway," he added in a light tone.

Steve snorted despite himself. At least there would be someone to call when Sarah needed help. "Thank you," Steve said quietly.

They didn't say much that afternoon, because there simply wasn't much to say. Steve didn't want to fill the silence with inane talk or empty comforts and he was relieved that Bucky seemed to feel the same way. He suspected Bucky didn't have much use for that kind of thing either.

\--------------------------

The prospect of losing his mother still seemed so abstract to Steve. He couldn't imagine living without her, especially considering that he'd spent most of his life knowing that he was going to die long before she would. There had never been any reason to fear that he was going to have to live without her, until a year ago, when it first became clear that she wasn't going to beat this thing. Even then, Steve had always been focused on the next thing and the next and the next, eager to take all the time they'd been given. But now, there was no next thing. There was no magic new drug that was going to extend her life a little more. They were at the end of the line.

He wondered how Peggy had dealt with this four years ago. She was like him in many ways - they certainly shared the same fighter spirit. She hadn't given up on him, just like he hadn't given up on his mother. Taking his phone out of his back pocket, he decided to text her.

**[Hey! Are you free today? Need someone to talk to.]** He'd informed her of the news concerning his mom a few days earlier, but they hadn't seen each other in person yet.

**_[I can meet you for lunch? Usual place?]_ ** Peggy suggested.

__

**[Yeah, sounds good]**

They agreed to meet at 12.30. Steve was glad to see she hadn't brought Angie along for this when he entered the coffee shop. It wasn't that he didn't trust or like her, but this was going to be a very personal conversation and probably rake up a lot of things from their past. Having Angie there wouldn't make it easier for any of them. He was also pleasantly surprised that Peggy had managed to secure a coveted booth at the back, mostly shielded from view. He suspected she'd used her formidable intimidation skills to get it.

She got out of the booth to hug him when she saw him approach. "How are you holding up?" she asked.

Steve sat down and shrugged. "I don't know." He was feeling so many things at the same time, it was impossible to pin one feeling down.

She nodded in understanding. "I know what you mean. Nothing makes sense when this happens, right?"

"Right."

An awkward silence passed between them. The topic of Steve's death hung heavy in the air, both of them knowing they'd have to talk about this today, but neither willing to be the first to broach the subject. The waitress came by to take their orders and Steve ordered a blueberry muffin, knowing it was Peggy's favorite, while Peggy ordered fresh mint tea.

"I don't know how you did it," he said as the waitress left their booth.

"I had to," Peggy replied. "Had to keep going." She blew on her tea and took a careful sip, testing the heat. "Your mum helped a lot, you know. I think she thought of me as a daughter for a while."

Steve felt himself choke up. Discussing the grief you've left behind after your death is not something he ever expected to have to deal with. He'd talked about this before with Peggy, but it would never stop being strange.

"And after a while, I had Angie," Peggy added. "You have a support system in place, Steve. I know it doesn't seem like much now, and it's not going to take away your pain. Nothing can." She smiled sadly, reaching out across the table to take his hand. "But you'll have people who will be there for you. I will be right here. And you've got Bucky, right?"

He nodded, returning her smile, though feebly.

"Is something wrong between you two?" Peggy asked.

"No, we're good, it's just..." He struggled to put his thoughts into words. He couldn't just tell her about everything Bucky went through - it wouldn't be fair towards him. He'd told Steve those things in confidence, he couldn't betray that trust. "He's been through a lot," he said, hoping it would convey the seriousness of the situation. "It's a lot to deal with."

Peggy frowned and took a sip of her tea. "Is it not too much to handle?"

"No, it's worth it. And he's really there for me too." He wasn't sure of much, but the one thing he knew with absolute certainty was that he wanted to be with Bucky. What was more, he was beginning to fall in love with him.

They stayed at the coffee shop until Peggy had to go back to work. He was glad he'd asked her to meet; he felt a little bit better. At the very least, she had pointed out to him that he had people who cared about him who would be there for him, no matter what. He may have been looking into an abyss, but there was a safety net right there to catch him if he should fall.

\--------------------------

Steve woke up, ready to prepare breakfast for his mother as always. He rubbed the sleepiness out of his eyes and walked to the kitchen. Sarah didn't eat much anymore, but he made breakfast for her every morning anyway, in the hopes that she would at least eat _something_. He made some toast for her. The smell filled his nostrils and his stomach rumbled. He also squeezed some fresh orange juice; he figured a good dose of vitamins certainly couldn't hurt his mother. Absent-mindedly, he took a bite of the toast he'd made. It looked delicious; he simply couldn't resist eating it. He chewed on it a few times, relishing the taste. He didn't remember toast tasting so good, but then, it had been so long since he'd had toast - and then it hit him. He was eating. People like him didn't eat. He spat out the toast in the trash in a hurry. How could he have forgotten that he didn't eat? That toast had looked so good, he'd practically felt himself salivating at the sight. He'd been completely indifferent to food ever since he'd woken up in his coffin. None of this made any sense.

PDS sufferers couldn't eat. The food would go right through them, unprocessed, and it would make them sick. He'd heard plenty of stories of PDS sufferers who ate something anyway, to be polite or to make their family more comfortable or just because they wanted to see what would happen, and every single one ended the same: in the bathroom, shitting their guts out.

He'd never heard of anyone eating because they _wanted_ to eat, because they felt hungry. Steve's stomach was still rumbling faintly. He was starting to feel sick, but he wasn't sure if it was from eating or from the anxiety caused by his sudden hunger.

Was this another side effect of the drug? As if the tremors and the fainting weren't bad enough, now he had to deal with this too? And worst of all: he had no idea what this meant. He was afraid to contact his local PDS liaison - she might report him and he'd be carted off to be experimented on, just like Bucky. He'd been suspicious before of the treatment center and the government, but now he was downright paranoid. Still, these side effects were getting out of hand.

Maybe he could talk to Dr. Banner about his symptoms. He wasn't specialized in PDS health care, but Steve trusted him and he might be able to find out more without putting Steve at risk.

He finished making breakfast and brought it to his mom. Predictably, she didn't eat much. He decided not to tell her about the toast incident; he didn't want to worry her. He also didn't tell Bucky, even though he knew he should. He rationalized it by telling himself it might be nothing, he might just worry them for no reason, maybe he just _thought_ he was hungry, maybe he just imagined it.

Even so, he decided to contact Dr. Banner. It was quite easy to get an appointment with him; he probably thought Steve wanted to talk about his mother, and being as involved as Dr. Banner was, he wanted to give his patients and their families the chance to ask questions and get as much information as they wanted. He'd always been extremely accommodating like that. Steve couldn't remember his own doctors ever having been that compassionate and understanding.

He could come in the next day to talk to Dr. Banner. He welcomed Steve into his office. "Good morning," he said. "What can I help you with today, Steve?"

Steve rubbed the back of his neck anxiously as he sat down. "This might be a little weird," he began.

"Oh?" Dr. Banner replied, raising his eyebrows. "How so?"

"It's not about my mom," Steve explained. He wanted to be upfront about that now, even if he hadn't been when he made the appointment.

Dr. Banner frowned. "What is it about then?"

"Do you know anything about PDS health?"

Dr. Banner's frown deepened and he leaned forward in his chair. "Not much, if I'm honest. Why do you ask?"

Steve took a deep breath. He was here to talk to Dr. Banner, because he trusted him. He could do this. "I've been having side effects to the drug," he explained.

"Isn't this something you should talk to with your liaison?"

"I'm afraid they'll use it as an excuse to send me back to the treatment center," Steve explained.

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"They could say there's a risk that I'm becoming immune to the drugs and send me back, for everyone's safety. They'll use any excuse to send us back." It sounded paranoid, even to his own ears, but he still believed it.

"Hmm, I see." Dr. Banner rubbed the scruff on his face, clearly thinking. "But why come to me?"

"I didn't think you'd report me." He hoped to God he was right about that.

"I won't," Dr. Banner promised, looking Steve straight in the eye to impress upon him that he was serious.

"I thought maybe you could ask around, find out if my symptoms are common or something," Steve clarified.

"What kinds of symptoms are we talking about here?"

Steve held out his hand. It was shaking again. The tremors had become steadily worse, to the point that his hand was now shaking more often than not. "This," he said, nodding to his hand. "And I black out sometimes after I take my shot. And then yesterday morning, I tried to eat. We don't eat."

Dr. Banner leaned back in his chair, giving Steve a concerned look. "Those are some pretty serious symptoms, Steve. You've been keeping this to yourself?"

"Well, my mom knows some of it. She knows about the tremors and the way I responded to the meds. But I didn't tell her that it got worse or that I tried to eat. Same goes for my boyfriend."

"Do _you_ think you're becoming immune?" he asked, though not unkindly. He didn't seem afraid of Steve, he mostly just seemed curious.

Steve shook his head. "I don't think so. I don't feel like I'm losing control or anything. I just feel different, somehow."

Dr. Banner wrote something down a notepad. "I'll try to look into it," he promised. "I don't know if I can find any useful information, though."

"I knew it was a long shot. Thank you for trying. I didn't really know who else I could trust," Steve said. He believed Dr. Banner when he made promises. He'd never once lied to Steve or Sarah, always telling them exactly how it was, with a healthy dose of kindness.

"You're very welcome," he said, smiling. "So, how's your mother doing?" he asked.

"Honestly?" Steve began. "Not great. I can barely get her to eat anything so she doesn't have a lot of energy either." He paused for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. "I think now that she knows there's nothing to be done, she's just sort of...accepted it. Not that's she's given up, exactly, but it's like she's taking it easy after fighting for so long."

Dr. Banner nodded in understanding. "That's not uncommon. How's the pain?"

"It's manageable, but we have to keep upping the dose to get there." Steve didn't like it, especially because the only reason they were even allowed to up the dose to such high levels was because she wouldn't be here much longer anyway. Every time they had to increase the dose, it was a painful reminder of just how close the end was.

"It's not much of a comfort, but that's to be expected, too."

Part of Steve wanted to snap, "So she's on the right schedule for dying?" but he held his tongue. Dr. Banner meant well and he knew there were no comforts for this kind of situation. Still, it was strange to realize that there was a protocol for dying, a series of steps that everyone apparently went through, taking even that individuality away. He hadn't thought of this when he had been dying, but he wondered if his mother had had the same thought four years ago. If she had wanted to snap at well-meaning doctors and throw things across the room and rage against everyone and everything. If she had also gone to extreme lengths to hide how upset she was from Steve, the way he was doing now.

"I know," Steve finally said. He thanked Dr. Banner for his time and left his office. Though his expectations weren't very high, he still hoped that Dr. Banner would be able to find some information on what was happening to him. Even if all he found was proof that other PDS sufferers had gone through this, it would be enough.

\--------------------------

Sam and Natasha proved to be of great help; they were there to take care of Sarah whenever Steve needed them. Between the two of them and Bucky, Sarah never had to spend a single moment alone. She complained that it drove her nuts, but Steve could tell she appreciated all the help. Peggy, though very busy, tried to spend some time at their apartment as well, much to his mother's delight. She had always liked Peggy, her fiery, no-nonsense attitude a match to Sarah's own.

Bucky spent a lot of time with Sarah, too, now that he didn't have a job to go to. Steve wondered what they talked about when he wasn't there, but neither of them gave much away when he asked. All he knew was that his mother had grown fond of Bucky in the short time that she'd known him.

Bucky had a hearing coming up about the incident at work. It was obvious that he was nervous about it, though he didn't really want to talk about it. In fact, they hadn't talked much about that night at all when Bucky had finally revealed what he looked like underneath all that cover-up. He still covered up whenever he went outside, but in the privacy of his own apartment, he had taken to walking around in his natural state. Every time, Steve made sure to tell him how beautiful he was.

The hearing was scheduled for February 16th. Steve wanted to go with Bucky, but he wasn't allowed. Bucky was only allowed to bring legal representation, which he couldn't afford. Pro-bono lawyers were hard to come by under the best of circumstances; even fewer would take on PDS cases. Since this wasn't a criminal case, Bucky wasn't guaranteed representation. He was on his own.

So Steve could do nothing but wait and hope that the committee ruled in Bucky's favor. He was on edge all day, unable to focus on any single task. Bucky couldn't be sent back to the treatment center. Steve would not let that happen.

In the end, it went better than either of them had expected. Bucky's supervisor came through for him and testified on his behalf. A few other coworkers had done the same. Though Bucky was still angry that they hadn't spoken up during the altercation itself and save Bucky a lot of stress and anxiety, he could do nothing but show them gratitude during the hearing. This only angered Bucky even more afterwards.

"Like it was some great gift and I should get on my knees and thank them for testifying now." He huffed in anger. "They get to pat themselves on the back for this oh-so-generous act of kindness, but they knew they'll never have to see me again. Couldn't bother to do anything while I was still there," he fumed.

Bucky would be reassigned to a different job within the next few days, "for everyone's safety," the committee had decided. They just wanted Bucky out of there, but didn't have a good enough reason to send him to the treatment center, not with three living coworkers testifying on his behalf.

Steve agreed with Bucky. He'd been treated reprehensibly by his coworkers and supervisor. They could have intervened much earlier, when Jack first began taunting Bucky. They'd let it go on until Bucky finally stood up for himself and pushed back and now Bucky was the one to bear the consequences. Jack, on the other hand, did not get suspended or fired. He could go on with his life as it had always been and when the next PDS sufferer walked into that warehouse, Jack could simply harass them again. He would never feel the consequences of his actions. The system wasn't built for it.

Still, Steve was glad Bucky would be allowed to stay, even if he had to be reassigned to a different job. And who knew, maybe this time he'd get a job that would be more manageable for a man with only one arm.

For now, he still had a few days off, which he spent mostly at the Rogers' apartment, much to Steve's delight. When Steve was home, they'd hang on the couch, watch movies or TV shows, or just talk for hours on end. Those days came to an end far too quickly, as Bucky received his new job assignment. It was a cleaning job at a school, a bit farther away from his building than the warehouse, but at least it wasn't halfway across the city. And though it was still a physically demanding job, it was far less intense than the warehouse job.

"I'm just glad I don't have to go back to dish-washing," Bucky said after his first day of work was over. Steve had met him at Bucky's apartment and Bucky had taken off his cover-up as soon as he got home. Steve loved it.

"They assigned you a dish-washing job?" Steve asked in disbelief. How hard would it be to take disabilities into account when creating those assignments? But then, disabilities didn't mean shit to any of them. They were barely human in the eyes of the living, the fact that many of them had a variety of disabilities probably never even occurred to them.

"Yeah, it wasn't easy," Bucky said. "Took me a while to figure out how to do that."

"How'd you get out of that job?" Steve asked. It was nearly impossible to switch jobs and he couldn't imagine Bucky had been through this whole hearing in front of a committee from PDS affairs thing before. For one, he would have told Steve and more importantly, nobody got so lucky that they were let off the hook twice.

Bucky's eyes shifted from Steve's face to a patch of wall to his right and back. "Asked to be reassigned."

"And they just gave you a new job?" Steve asked incredulously. "Lucky you," he added. It wasn't until he saw Bucky's face - eyes now fixed on a random spot on the wall - that he realized he might have wandered into painful territory. He wanted to punch himself for being so callous.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked, waving his hand in front of Bucky's face.

Bucky blinked a few times, eyes slowly focusing on Steve again. "Sorry," he said quietly. He seemed to be shrinking in on himself.

"Hey," Steve said as he reached out to touch Bucky's knee. Bucky flinched at the motion and Steve hastily retracted his hand. Bucky looked horrified, already beginning to stammer out an apology for flinching the way he did. "Nothing to apologize for, Buck," Steve said, keeping his hands firmly to himself this time. He was silently debating with himself whether he should prompt Bucky to talk about what just happened or whether he should give him more space and avoid pushing him.

Before he could make up his mind, Bucky made the decision for him. "It wasn't safe," he said. "Had to switch jobs."

Steve raised his eyebrows in question. "What do you mean it wasn't safe?" Steve figured it was okay to ask since Bucky had broached the subject himself. All kinds of mental images were already floating through Steve's brain; he wasn't sure what to make of Bucky's words.

"He would find me, I knew he was going to find me. I couldn't stay there."

"Who would find you?" The panicked tone in Bucky's voice worried Steve.

"I lived with him, after Tony." It didn't escape Steve's attention that Bucky didn't mention him by name, whoever this person was. He wasn't looking at Steve at all. "He knew where I worked and there was no way he wouldn't look for me there."

Steve wasn't sure how to respond to this new information. He'd never been in such a situation before. In fact, he hadn't been in many relationships to begin with; Peggy was his first truly serious relationship. For some reason, the situation that Bucky was now heavily hinting at had always seemed distant to him. It was something that happened to other people in his mind. It was strange - he knew anyone could end up in a bad relationship, but knowing and being confronted with the evidence right here in front of him were two very different things. "He hurt you?" Steve asked. He wasn't at all sure it was the right thing to ask, but he needed Bucky to know that Steve was hearing him and that he would listen for as long as necessary if Bucky wanted to talk more.

He nodded in response, still avoiding eye contact with Steve. His eyes looked so far away, as if he was barely even present in the room.

"Hey, Buck," Steve began, trying to get his attention. "Can you look at me for a second?"

Bucky peeled his eyes away from the spot on the wall and raised them up to Steve's eyes.

"I'm right here." He desperately wanted to hug Bucky, but he figured that might not be the best idea, given how Bucky had reacted when Steve reached out to touch his knee. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Bucky shook his head with force.

"Okay. That's okay," Steve reassured him. "If you do, I'm right here, alright?"

"Yeah, alright," Bucky said, reaching out for Steve's hand. Steve imagined he could feel the coldness of Bucky's hand, that he could feel the soft texture of his skin. He let himself get lost in that fantasy for a moment, reveling in Bucky's presence. Yeah, he was definitely in love. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last flashback chapter. It contains graphic descriptions of sexual and domestic violence throughout. This is not going to pleasant, so take care when you read this.
> 
> Also, I hate to leave you guys with more time than usual after this chapter, but I'll be too busy next week to update. I plan to update again in two weeks time.

Living on his own was tough. After he left Tony by himself, passed out in the living room, he packed his things in a rush. He hadn't really thought about what would come next. All he had were some clothes and a stash of his meds, his cover-up makeup and contacts stuffed in a small backpack. According to regulations, he was supposed to stay with Tony. In practice, nobody really cared where PDS sufferers went, as long as they didn't go rabid. Bucky had expected someone to show up and check on him in the two months that he'd been living with Tony, kind of like a parole officer. But nobody ever did.

So he wasn't too worried that the authorities might come after him. His bigger concern was where to live now that Tony was no longer an option. He couldn't think of anyone who'd be willing to take him in. He'd briefly considered his last foster family, but he hadn't seen them in about seven years and he'd never been particularly close to them to begin with. He didn't have anyone to turn to now.

He wandered through the city for days, just trying to figure out what to do. He didn't sleep much, partly because he didn't need much sleep anyway, but mostly because he couldn't find a good place to stay. In the end, he resigned himself to living on the streets. He wasn't sure where to begin. It was strange to think that he'd been living in this city most of his life, yet there were parts of it that had been completely shielded from his view. Despite all of his misfortunes up until this point, he'd never had to go without a roof over his head.

He tried to find a spot to live, but his search was complicated by his PDS status. Most of the homeless spots he found turned him away as soon as they found out he was PDS. Some of them chased him away angrily. Others were more apologetic about it, but still wouldn't budge. "Look man," one of them had said, "we already have a bad rep, you know? We can't use this." Bucky understood, though he didn't like it. He was about to turn around and leave when the man grabbed his arm to get his attention. "I think there's some of you down by the tunnels. You should check that out."

It wasn't much, but it was the most helpful thing anyone had said to him since he left the treatment center. "Thanks, I will."

The man was right, there was a whole community just where he'd said it would be. Bucky had expected a small group of people, but he counted at least thirty people right here. There were other groups spread out through the tunnels, or so he was told. All of them turned out by their families and nobody else to go to.

This part of the tunnel was dirty, abandoned. It was part of an old subway track that had gone out of use. Nobody had bothered to keep these tunnels in shape, just like nobody cared for the people who lived in them.

They were lucky none of them had to eat and the government paid for their medication. They could get a new prescription at any time, no questions asked, as long as they could prove they were PDS. It had led to a lot of outrage when that news first broke, but the government reasoned that they couldn't risk someone missing a dose simply because they couldn't afford the drug. It was the first time that the government had managed to agree on providing health care for free. Of course, this didn't apply to other medications. The only reason this provision was passed was because untreated PDS sufferers were a safety hazard for everyone.

Still, it was reassuring to know that he could live, at the very least. He might run out of makeup and not have the money to replace it, but he wouldn't go rabid and he wouldn't die.

Bucky kept to himself for the most part, spending a good chunk of his days wandering around the city and only returning to the tunnels when night began to fall. He wasn't particularly interested in making contact with others, and they seemed to feel the same way about him.

Every now and then, a living person would come by to donate clothes and ask them if there was anything else they needed. It was kind, Bucky supposed, but he'd never much liked the idea of being treated like a charity case. One of them became a familiar face after a while. He showed up every week on Monday night at 9pm, like clockwork. The first time he saw Bucky, he immediately introduced himself.

"Hey, I haven't seen you around here before. I'm Brock," the man said, extending his hand.

"Bucky." He shook Brock's hand.

Brock was older than Bucky - if he had to guess, Bucky would have said he was in his mid-thirties. He had a gruff look, rough stubble on his jaw and slicked back hair, and an even gruffer voice to go with it. Every week, he'd ask Bucky if he needed anything and though Bucky always said no, he always showed up with something for Bucky anyway. It made Bucky feel special, wanted.

Brock went from small gestures to outright flirting. He told Bucky he was cute, then beautiful, then sexy. Bucky responded to these compliments bashfully and basked in them. He hadn't thought he'd ever feel this way again. Brock was very tactile, his hands always touching some part of Bucky, as if unwilling to let any distance come between them.

Eventually, Brock invited Bucky over to his apartment. It just felt right to go with him. Brock had shown him so much kindness. He'd made Bucky feel human again. They had sex that night and though Brock had told him to keep his shirt on at the sight of the scar that ran down the length of his spine, though Brock wouldn't kiss him, hadn't even really looked at him, Bucky felt lucky to have found someone who wanted him.

He found himself going over to Brock's apartment more and more often, to the point that he ended up spending more time there than in the tunnels. So when Brock suggested he just move in, it made sense. He wasn't a charity case; Brock loved him. Okay, he hadn't actually said those words, but Bucky wasn't about to get hung up on that. He clearly cared about Bucky. Why else would he take in a PDS sufferer off the streets? Only a truly good person would be able to see past his PDS and his homelessness and see something worth caring about. Bucky was over the moon.

The first day after he moved in, Bucky asked him if he would help to administer the drug. It was a relief to finally have someone who he trusted and who could help him, even if he'd learned how to do it by himself.

To his surprise, Brock refused. "Don't really see the point, baby boy," he said. "You're probably better at it than I am," he reasoned. "Wouldn't want me to mess up, would you?"

Bucky shook his head. When he put it like that, it made sense that he would just keep doing it himself. One day, Brock walked in on him in the bathroom, the injection gun already in place at the hole in the back of his neck.

"Oh, gross, Jesus, I don't wanna see that shit," Brock yelled.

"Sorry," Bucky mumbled. He chastised himself; it was his fault Brock was upset. Of course Brock wouldn't want to see this PDS stuff. He promised himself he wouldn't let Brock see him like that again. Brock had already helped him so much, in so many ways, Bucky had to repay him somehow.

Bucky tried to kiss him sometimes, but Brock always refocused his attention to sex. Bucky pretended not to be hurt by it, but the truth was that he'd always liked kissing, maybe even more than he liked sex. But then, he rationalized, not everyone has the same preferences. Maybe Brock just didn't like to kiss at all. Bucky wasn't going to force him to do something he didn't want to do.

He hadn't realized how much he'd missed having a roof over his head and an actual bed to sleep in until he moved in with Brock and all those comforts became taken for granted again. He also hadn't realized just how lonely he'd been. He craved human contact and he gladly took every little bit Brock gave him.

He was delighted to find that Brock had a more than healthy sex drive, happily going along with whatever he initiated. Every time Brock pushed him to his knees or had him lying face down on the bed, he went willingly. He'd been celibate during his years in the army, not having wanted to risk his career for something as trivial as sex. Not even when DADT was repealed; he still didn't feel comfortable being out, so he remained firmly in the closet.

He'd told himself that he wasn't missing much, but he realized now how much of that was a lie that he'd told himself to get by. Only now that he couldn't _quite_ feel what it used to be like, now that his sensations and nerve endings were either gone or dulled, he realized how great it had been to feel _everything_. He craved that feeling, but he could never have it again. It was like a constant itch that he could never scratch.

Brock liked it rough and for a while, Bucky was okay with it. It was easier to imagine the sensations he used to get when he felt the force of Brock's thrusts and the pressure of Brock holding him down. In the end, it didn't make much of a difference. He couldn't summon sensations to come back to him. Once he realized that, he craved intimacy more than actual physical sensations.

"Can we go slow tonight?" Bucky suggested, reaching up to kiss Brock's neck, but his advances were rebuffed as Brock turned away.

"Why? 'S not like I can hurt you."

Bucky's heart sank. "I know, I just feel like taking it easy."

Brock snorted - a cold, harsh sound that cut right through Bucky. "You can't even feel anything." Brock looked at Bucky's crestfallen face and laughed. "Oh c'mon, it's not like you ever complained before. You like it hard and you know it." He turned Bucky over, pulled down his sweatpants and underwear and pushed in. He never bothered with any prep, since Bucky couldn't feel pain anyway. "So good for me, baby boy. You're always so good for me," he said as he began thrusting.

The praise felt empty to Bucky, who just lay there and took it.

\--------------------------

Brock didn't mean it like that, Bucky told himself the next day. He was just in a bad mood and Bucky had nagged about doing something different and Brock just wasn't up for it. Brock was allowed to say no, of course. Besides, Brock was right. What was the big deal with the way they were doing things now? Bucky could take it and even if they went slow, he still wouldn't feel much of anything. Might as well continue as they were.

He couldn't get rid of the discomfort he felt, though, no matter how hard he tried. He just wanted to be held sometimes, not just be held down while Brock rammed into him. And though he couldn't feel pain, exactly, he still felt an uneasiness tingling at his spine whenever Brock went particularly hard.

But then again, Brock still bought him new clothes, he took care of Bucky, he let him live here when he had had nowhere else to go. He didn't want to seem ungrateful. Brock had given him so much. Without him, Bucky would still be in those tunnels.

\--------------------------

Six months after Bucky had been released from the treatment center, the city of New York proposed its "give-back program." The idea was that PDS sufferers would give back to the communities they'd destroyed during the Rising by working for the government and small business owners. A special office was set up to oversee which PDS sufferer would go where. PDS sufferers could apply for jobs suited to their level of education or expertise, but no promises could be made as to where they would end up. In practice, almost every single PDS sufferer ended up doing the kind of unskilled, manual labor usually reserved for underpaid undocumented immigrants. The program was wildly popular. Employers could pay PDS sufferers a fraction of what they paid regular employees, without risking being busted for illegal practices or employing undocumented immigrants. It also made life a lot harder for many immigrants, who had an even more difficult time to find work. Two birds, one stone, for those who felt resentment towards both PDS sufferers and immigrants. Once other cities caught on to the popularity of the program, they weren't far behind, killing any fantasies PDS sufferers might have had of leaving New York.

When Bucky got his assignment - a dish-washing job - he almost laughed in the guy's face. He wasn't above doing shitty jobs, but surely they could find a better job than dish-washing for someone with one arm. It hadn't occurred to them to take injuries sustained before or during the Rising into account. Bucky tried to reason with the man, but he didn't listen. "I don't make the rules, kiddo. This is your assignment, so this is where you go." He made it work, like he made everything else work, with time and effort.

Brock wasn't happy that Bucky would be going to work every day. "I want you to be safe, at home," he explained. He grumbled for a few minutes, pacing up and down the living room while Bucky watched him anxiously from his spot on the couch. "If you're gonna be making money, you gotta start picking up part of the bill."

Bucky nodded; it was a reasonable enough request. "I won't be making much, just so you know, but I'll contribute what I can."

Brock gave him a wolfish grin, the one that spelled trouble. "Better start paying me in kind then, baby boy." He walked over to the couch and pulled Bucky off it, onto his knees. He barely gave Bucky enough time to open his mouth before he shoved in, hand gripping his hair tightly to hold his head still. Bucky closed his eyes and waited for it to be over.

\--------------------------

He told himself that Brock had been joking. This was just his sense of humor, that was all. He kept trying to please Brock, but nothing seemed to do the trick. He grumbled about how ungrateful Bucky was, how much he owed Brock, how good his life was here and that he should show some appreciation. Bucky gave him part of his paycheck, but he kept some to himself, stashed away in a box under a loose floorboard. He felt horrible the first time he did it, like he was betraying Brock by not sharing his full paycheck. But he didn't like the idea of being completely dependent on someone else. He'd always had to depend on himself and he didn't trust that he could ever fully depend on someone else.

Still, he loved Brock. On good days, Brock would let Bucky cuddle up a little, even though he hated cuddling. Bucky had to walk a fine line when he did it; too much or too fast, and Brock would pull away. He'd take whatever he could get. He didn't understand how he could be lonely when he lived with someone he loved, but here he was.

He wasn't just starved for intimacy, but also for conversation. They barely ever talked anymore and when they did, it was always Brock complaining, usually about Bucky. It was such a far cry from what they had when Bucky still lived on the streets or when he first moved in. Everything had seemed perfect then.

He was determined to try to get that feeling back. He just had to find a way to get through to Brock. Bucky started cooking for him. Though it was a little harder to cook when you couldn't taste the food to see if you were on the right track, he still felt quite confident about his cooking skills.

To his relief, Brock agreed. "Hmm, this is real good," he said in between big bites. "Knew I kept you around for a reason." Bucky pretended not to have heard that. He wasn't going to let a silly crass comment spoil this for him. Brock was finally happy again.

That night, Brock tried to manhandle Bucky to make him turn over, as usual. But this time, Bucky refused. "Can't we just do it like this, for once?" he asked, spread out on the bed on his back.

"What for?"

"I just wanna look at you," Bucky replied, mustering a smile. Brock's expression didn't give him much confidence though.

"What the fuck difference does it make? You don't even get anything out of this anyway." He looked faintly amused, as if Bucky was a silly child who'd just asked his parents a stupid question without realizing how stupid their question had been.

Bucky shrank into the bed. "I could," he said quietly.

Brock laughed - a hollow laugh designed to hurt Bucky. "How? Hmm? It doesn't matter what I do, you won't feel it." He grabbed Bucky's crotch and squeezed hard and tight enough to be uncomfortable. "Can't feel this, can you?" Bucky wanted to explain that yes, he could feel it, that though it didn't hurt, he felt the pressure of Brock's hand, and sense memory filled in a good chunk as well. That even though his nerves were dulled to the point where his pain receptors were practically nonexistent, he still felt uncomfortable. Violated. But the words were stuck in his throat. He was frozen to the bed. A voice in his head told him to move, to get out of there, to do something, anything, but his body couldn't cooperate.

Brock raised his right hand and smacked Bucky across the face, hard. "Can't even feel this, can you?" Bucky's hand came up to his struck cheek instinctively and he stared at Brock in horror. Brock hit him again, this time on the other side of his face. The impact knocked him on his side and Brock took the opportunity to flip him over, face-down. He held Bucky down with one hand and used the other hand to push down both their underwear far enough. "If you didn't like this, why did you let it go on for so long, hmm? If you didn't want this, you woulda said something." He slammed into Bucky so hard he was shaken by the force of it.

Bucky wanted to say that he had said something, that he had tried to indicate in a million ways that he wanted more intimacy, that he had always tried to kiss Brock or cuddle him or do anything other than _this._ He wanted to say he loved Brock and ask him why he was doing this. He wanted to get off the bed and away from Brock.

His muscles were locked in place. He couldn't move. He could only endure this.

When Brock finally finished, Bucky lay there for a minute before slowly moving towards the edge of the bed. He felt numb, used. He grabbed a blanket and sank down on the couch in the living room, wrapping the blanket around himself like a cocoon.

He spent the night on the couch, unable to sleep. He heard Brock's loud snoring coming from the bedroom shortly after he settled on the couch. He took the opportunity to take a long shower, trying to wash away what had happened. A mix of emotions coursed through him all through the night: humiliation, anger, fear, sadness. This whole time, he'd told himself that despite it all, Brock cared about him. Despite his grumpiness and his yelling and his rough treatment of Bucky, deep down, he loved Bucky. Hitting someone wasn't love. Bucky knew that much.

His mind flashed back to when he was fifteen and Tony had a very serious conversation with him about dating. Tony had told him that if anyone treated him wrong, if anyone ever made him feel like shit, to come to Tony. He promised he'd help Bucky, no matter what. Tony had always been so protective of him. Bucky wondered wryly if Tony would care if he knew the situation Bucky was in now. He'd probably think he deserved it.

Still, Tony's words echoed in his mind. "If they treat you like shit once, they will do it again," he'd said. If Bucky was being honest with himself, Brock had already treated him like shit, many times over. In the eleven months that he'd been living here, he'd felt good about himself and their relationship for maybe two months. The rest, he spent trying to get back whatever it was that they had before. He compromised at every turn, dismissing his own needs in favor of Brock's.

He knew he had to get out. The money he'd saved up was stashed under a floorboard in the bedroom. He couldn't leave without it, so he'd have to wait until morning, when Brock left for work. He felt a sudden burst of energy as the seeds of a plan took hold in his mind. He'd seen an apartment building on route to his job that advertised apartments for rent - PDS welcome. The building looked like shit, but it was something.

He worried that Brock might be able to track him down from his current job. All he'd have to do was show up at the restaurant and he'd find Bucky and be able to follow him to wherever he'd be living. Bucky felt sick at the thought. He might never be able to get away from Brock. Stories like these had always been around, but he never thought he'd be in the middle of it. It had always seemed comfortably distant, but now he was living it.

When Brock woke up and stumbled out of the bedroom, he laughed at the sight of Bucky sitting on the couch, curled up on the couch again with a blanket around him. "You been sitting here all night, hmm? Sad you didn't get to suck my dick last night, is that it? Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll give it to you tonight." Brock grinned and ruffled Bucky's hair, as if he was a petulant child.

Bucky felt bile rise up in his throat, but he pushed it down. He didn't want to give Brock the satisfaction. As soon as Brock left for work, he grabbed his backpack, stuffed it with as many clothes as possible, grabbed the cash from under the floorboards, and left. He didn't look back as he let the door fall shut behind him.

His first course of action was to go to the PDS registry center and try to get a different job. It was a long shot - the center wasn't particularly sensitive to the requests of PDS sufferers, but he had to try.

He had to take a number. When he was finally called to one of the desks, he was greeted by a friendly-looking young woman. "What can I help you with today?" she asked.

"I'd like to be reassigned to a different job," Bucky began.

Her smile wavered a little. "We get a lot of those requests, you know."

"I know," Bucky interrupted her. "But this is different." He took a deep breath. He had to impress on her that this was important. He wasn't just bored with his job, this was about his safety. He was going to have to tell her _something_. "My boyfriend...ex-boyfriend," he corrected himself, voice shaking. "He knows where I work. He'll come after me. Please," he begged.

Her professional mask slipped infinitesimally. She frowned, looking from her computer screen to Bucky and back. "I'm not supposed to do this. Can I see your ID?"

Bucky handed it to her, hope filling his chest.

She typed in his info and stared at the screen intently for a few minutes. "I've got something here, it's a warehouse job." Her eyes flickered to his empty sleeve. "I don't know if that's okay."

"It's fine." He'd take anything he could get. "Thank you so much."

Her eyes softened as she smiled. "I'm glad I could help." She sounded sincere.

The apartment building he'd seen was already filled with tenants. The Super helpfully informed Bucky of another building that probably still had a few apartments up for rent. This building was even shittier than the last, but the Super had been right; there were still a few empty apartments and Bucky could move in immediately if he wanted. The rent was quite cheap too - the upside of an incredibly decrepit building, he figured.

He signed the lease that same day. He didn't have any furniture, so the apartment was a completely empty space. Still, he felt better than he had in months. Only now that he was away from Brock did he realize just how oppressive the atmosphere had been in that apartment.

Basking in his newfound relief and freedom, he was interrupted by a knock on the door. For a split second, he thought it might be Brock. No, Brock was still at work, he wouldn't even have realized that Bucky had left yet. He looked through the peephole and saw a young woman standing in the hallway.

"Hi, I'm Wanda! Welcome to the building!" she said as soon as Bucky opened the door. She had an accent Bucky couldn't quite place.

"Uhh, hi?" Bucky said. He wasn't prepared for this level of enthusiasm.

"What's your name, neighbor?" she asked.

"Bucky," he replied.

She peeked over his shoulder into the apartment. "Kind of empty, isn't it?"

Bucky looked behind himself, following her gaze. "Yeah, I guess." He didn't much feel like being mocked by strangers.

"Do you need help finding some things?" she asked.

He was taken aback; he'd expected a snide comment, not an offer to help. "Uhh..."

"I know a few places," she continued.

He looked over his shoulder again. He'd need a mattress at the very least and he could do with a chair and a table. "Okay," he agreed.

Together, they found the bare minimum that Bucky would need, for a more than reasonable price. She helped him carry everything upstairs and put everything in place.

Bucky sat down on the mattress, suddenly feeling empty. He'd been operating in survival mode all day, but now it hit him. He was all alone again. He had to start over, again.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Wanda asked, as she sat down next to Bucky. She rubbed his back and though he couldn't feel much of it, knowing she was offering the kind of touch he'd been craving for so long was enough to make him cry.

He told her about Brock and about Howard and Maria. A voice in the back of his head told him it was ridiculous that he was spilling his guts to the first virtual stranger who offered him any comfort, that this was exactly what got him into trouble in the first place, but he'd been keeping this in for so long, he had to get it out of him.

Wanda held him through all of it. "You're a good person, Bucky," she said when his sobbing finally stopped.

Maybe this time, starting over wouldn't be so bad. 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's minor violence in this chapter and as always, PTSD.

Spring was just around the corner. The weather still had to catch up to that fact – it was dreary and rainy outside. If Steve hadn’t known any better, he would’ve thought it was the middle of fall, not the tail-end of winter. He tried not to think about the fact that this was probably going to be Sarah’s last spring, their last spring together. He was determined to make the most of the time they had left.

He hadn’t heard anything from Dr. Banner yet, so he pushed his worries about the side effects to the back of his mind. The tremors were becoming hard to hide at this point, but so far, neither Bucky nor Sarah had commented on it.

He hadn’t been able to go on actual dates with Bucky lately, having been so busy with his mom. Even the PDS meetings had to give way sometimes. Natasha, Sam and Bucky would all be at the meeting and he didn’t want to leave his mother alone, even if she insisted that nothing would happen in the few hours that he’d be gone. Rationally, he knew she was right. She could take care of herself and if she needed him, she’d call. But it still felt wrong to leave her alone. It took a lot of persuading on her part to finally get him to go back to the meetings. When he did, he was glad he listened to her. The meetings were cathartic for him. He’d become so close to a lot of the regulars, the community center felt like a home away from home.

A few weeks ago, he heard about a new center that had opened up over in Washington Heights, specifically for PDS sufferers. It was a kind of meeting place, but with no expectations to consume food or drinks, and the living could only enter when a PDS sufferer vouched for them. It was as safe of a place as Steve could imagine for them. Taking Bucky there was high on his list of priorities. The Pride center was great, but there was still a sense that they should discuss Serious PDS Things, as opposed to just have fun, even if Steve usually enjoyed the meetings.

Besides, he really wanted to meet the people who had set up the meeting place in Washington Heights. It must have been very difficult to get the money needed to open such a place. It couldn’t have been easy to get the support of the living, but without their support, the concept never would have taken off. PDS sufferers generally didn’t have enough freedom or money to do something like this on their own.

So on the last day of the month, Steve decided to surprise Bucky and take him to this new center. Natasha and Sam had promised to check in on Sarah during the day, so Steve felt secure enough to leave the house for the entire afternoon.

“Where are we going again?” Bucky asked as Steve led him to the subway.

“I told you, it’s a surprise.” He really hoped this would pan out. He hadn’t actually seen the center for himself yet either, so he could only hope that it lived up to his expectations.

They took the A train all the way up. Steve pointedly ignored the looks he got from strangers. He wasn’t going to let a bunch of random people ruin this day for him.

When they finally got to the center, Steve realized it was much bigger than he had expected. There were different rooms for different activities. It used to be an arcade hall and they had kept some of the old arcade games intact, giving it a bit of a retro vibe. It was incredible to see so many PDS sufferers in a room together, just enjoying themselves and _living._ Steve immediately felt at home.

He looked to Bucky to gauge his reaction. “So, what d’you think?” Steve asked.

“This is just for PDS people?” Bucky asked.

“Well, allies are welcome, but they have to come along with a PDS person. They can’t just walk in,” Steve explained.

“How long has this been here?”

“It just opened a couple of weeks ago.” The large number of people present at the center was indicative of how sorely needed a place like this was. In the few weeks since its opening, the word had spread quickly among the PDS community.

They played a bunch of games and though Steve was by far the more competitive, Bucky kicked his ass in most of the games, despite him only having the use of one arm.

“I should’ve known better than to challenge a vet to these games,” Steve grumbled when Bucky easily beat him in a single-shooter game.

“Oh, did I not mention that I was one of their best snipers?” Bucky teased casually.

Steve raised his eyebrows; Bucky didn’t talk much about his time in the army, so Steve actually didn’t know he was a sniper. In fact, Steve didn’t know much of anything about that time in Bucky’s life except that he died in Afghanistan. “You conveniently forgot to tell me that,” Steve replied, not wanting to ruin the light-hearted mood.

Bucky collected an insane number of tickets, allowing him to choose from a wide range of prizes. “Which one do you want?” Bucky asked Steve.

“You won those tickets, you should pick something for yourself,” Steve said.

Bucky rolled his eyes and huffed. “I’m giving you something anyway so pick something you want.”

“Fine,” Steve said, feigning annoyance. He already had his eye on a big dark brown teddy bear that reminded him of Bucky for some reason. “How about that one?” he said, pointing to the teddy bear.

Bucky grinned. “Of course you’d choose the biggest prize in this place.” He handed over the tickets to the girl behind the booth and handed the teddy bear to Steve. “Size queen,” he added cheekily.

Steve almost raised his eyebrows at that, but caught himself at the last moment. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Bucky in such a good mood, but he didn’t want to draw attention to it and make Bucky self-conscious of that fact. He just wanted to _be_.

“Thanks, Buck,” Steve said as he leaned in for a kiss. “You’re the best.” They were about to walk away, when Steve noticed that Bucky was still holding some tickets. “You still got tickets left?” Steve asked.

Bucky nodded, holding out the remainder of his tickets. “Why? You wanna get something else?”

Steve looked from the tickets to the booth and his eye landed on an item that he couldn’t resist getting. “Can I?” he asked and Bucky handed him the tickets. Steve came back with a rainbow slinky and gave it to Bucky.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Bucky asked, but he was smiling.

“It’s motivational, cause this thing is about as straight as you are,” Steve joked.

“Jesus Christ, that’s terrible,” Bucky said, bursting out in laughter. It was a rare but delicious sound and Steve reveled in it.

They hung out in a lounge area for a while, sitting on a couch with Bucky to Steve’s left and the bear to his right.

“So you really never told me you were a sniper,” Steve said. He wanted to know everything about Bucky. He tried to imagine him with a sniper rifle in his hands, but it was difficult to picture such a kind-hearted person with such a deadly weapon.

“Hmm,” Bucky said, and for a second Steve thought that was the end of that conversation. “I don’t know why I was good at it,” he continued. “I just was. I never even fired a gun before I started training,” he said. “Kind of a weird talent to have.”

“Why did you want to join the army in the first place?” Steve had never felt any compulsion to join the army, for a variety of reasons, ranging from the virulent homophobia to the extreme militarism that the US government deployed through its armed forces.

Bucky shrugged. “I just wanted to make a difference.”

That was a sentiment Steve could get behind, even if he didn’t agree with the means to get there. “Yeah, I get that,” Steve began. “Guess we have that in common, huh?” he commented, but when he looked up at Bucky’s face, he noticed Bucky’s eyes were fixed on a spot somewhere behind Steve. He turned around to follow Bucky’s line of sight.

Several feet over, a couple of guys were sitting on a couch, just like the one Steve and Bucky were sitting on. One of them was visibly older than the other and he was kissing the other guy quite possessively from what Steve could tell. His body half-covered the other man’s and a hand held his jaw.

“You know them?” Steve asked.

Bucky could barely tear his eyes away from them. He nodded slowly. Other than that, he seemed rooted to the spot.

Steve had a creeping suspicion about who this person was, but he was afraid to ask. He looked behind him again and by now, the couple had disentangled, the older man’s arm slung around the younger man, effectively keeping him trapped. The older man looked in their direction and his eyes landed on Bucky. A grin appeared on his face, he said something to his partner, and he stood up and walked over to Steve and Bucky.

Steve looked back to Bucky, who now looked sick. “You wanna leave?” Steve said, already half-getting up out of his seat and getting ready to pull Bucky along with him. He didn’t look like he could move much right now.

But before he could do so, the man had already reached them. “Never thought I’d see you again,” the man said to Bucky. It was a pleasant enough sentiment but there was something in his voice that made it sound like a threat.

“C’mon, Buck, let’s go,” Steve said quietly.

“What’s the matter, baby boy? Cat got your tongue? Aren’t you gonna introduce me to your boyfriend?” Sarcasm and contempt dripped of the way he said the word ‘boyfriend’. Steve wasn’t sure if the contempt was aimed at himself or at Bucky. Every word that came out of his mouth made Steve’s skin crawl.

Steve was still trying to get Bucky to move, trying to ignore this asshole, but then he turned his attention to Steve. “You should know that Buckaroo here is an ungrateful little shit,” he said, turning Steve around by his shoulder. “You can give him everything he wants, pay for his every need and needs and he’ll just leave you, no note, nothing. He’ll rob you blind. He does listen real good when he’s on his knees, though.” He turned to Bucky again. “Don’tcha, doll?”

Anger welled up in Steve. How dare this piece of shit talk to Bucky that way? How could he have treated Bucky like that? His hands balled up into fists and before he knew it, he’d landed a punch on the man’s jaw. He looked a little dazed for a moment, but he recovered quickly and punched Steve in return. Steve lost his balance, which the man used to his advantage by punching Steve again. When he fell over, the man started kicking him.

“See?” he taunted Steve in between kicks. “This piece of shit won’t even get up to defend you.”

It felt like forever before a security guy intervened. In reality, it was no more than a few minutes at the absolute most.

Steve couldn’t bruise, but he definitely felt sore as he tried to get up. Bucky was still frozen on the couch. The manager of the center came over to them, looking from the man now detained by a couple of security guards to Steve and Bucky, sitting on the couch.

“What happened here?” he asked. He was one of the biggest men Steve had ever seen. He would’ve been intimidating if it wasn’t for his kind voice.

“This guy was kicking him,” the first security guard said, pointing to Steve. “Lotta rage, man.”

The man was fuming in the guards’ hold, but he couldn’t break free. “Take him to my office. And call the police,” the manager said. “So what happened?” he asked again, once the guards had taken him away.

Steve looked at Bucky before answering. He still looked like he was in shock. “He intimidated us,” Steve began. He wasn’t sure how much to tell the manager. He didn’t want to expose Bucky’s past to this random stranger, even if he seemed inclined to help them. “I may have punched him, it’s a bit of a blur. And then he started punching and kicking me.”

A small crowd had gathered around them, the commotion having drawn bystanders. “I overheard him,” a woman in the crowd piped up. “He deserved a lot more than a single punch for the shit he said,” she continued.

“What about him?” the manager asked quietly, looking at Bucky. “He doesn’t look too good.”

Bucky was shaking now and Steve felt helpless at the sight. Touching Bucky might make things even worse. “He knew the guy,” Steve explained, dropping his voice to avoid being overheard. “They have a bad history.” He hoped that would convey everything the manager needed to know without going into detail. Not that Steve even knew the details, but at this point, he had enough pieces of the puzzle to put together what had happened between them.

“I see.” The manager frowned and rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “I could get someone to take you home?” he suggested. 

Steve considered it for a moment; it would take them a while to get home by subway and Bucky was clearly very upset. It would be much easier if someone could just drive them home. “That would be great,” he replied.

The manager arranged for one of the security guards to drive them and Steve gave him directions to Bucky’s apartment. He figured it was best to take Bucky straight home, instead of stopping by Steve’s place first.

Once they were in the car, Bucky started coming back to himself. “I’m sorry,” was the first thing he said.

“What for?” Steve asked, confused. None of this was Bucky’s fault.

“I should’ve helped you when he…he attacked you and I didn’t do anything.”

“Hey,” Steve began, struggling to keep the anger out of his voice. He didn’t want Bucky to think he was angry with him. “You’re not responsible for what he did.”

Bucky didn’t respond; he was staring out the window instead.

Finally, they arrived at Bucky’s building. As they walked up the stairs to Bucky’s apartment, they happened to run into Wanda in the stair house. She took one look at Bucky and stopped in her tracks. “What happened?” she asked, looking from Bucky to Steve and back.

Steve hesitated to answer; he had no idea how much she knew, if she knew anything about this guy at all.

“Brock,” Bucky said. So now Steve could put a name to the guy’s face.

Clearly, Wanda knew what Bucky was talking about because her jaw dropped a little. “You saw him?”

Bucky nodded, on the verge of tears again. Wanda hugged him briefly, before joining them back up the stairs to Bucky’s place.

Steve felt a little awkward. Wanda seemed to know more than he did, and while he didn’t necessarily mind that Bucky had told her more - she’d known him much longer than Steve had, after all - he felt unsure if he should stay now. If Bucky wanted to talk specifics, but wasn’t ready to share them with Steve, he’d just be in the way.

“Buck, do you want me to go?” Steve asked, once Bucky had settled on his couch.

He shook his head fiercely. “Please stay,” he said.

Steve sat down next to him, relieved. He didn’t want to leave Bucky in this state, but he would’ve gone if Bucky had asked him to.

“Where did you guys see him?” Wanda asked, sitting down on the floor in front of them, legs crossed.

“We went to that new rec center, in Washington Heights,” Steve replied. “He was there and he came over when he saw Bucky.” Steve had so many questions, but he was afraid to ask them. He wondered if Brock lived in the area, if Steve had led Bucky straight into the lion’s den by going to this center and keeping it a surprise until they got there. He wondered about the guy Brock was with, if he was like Bucky, vulnerable and manipulated.

He also wanted to know how much Wanda knew, just so he wouldn’t end up accidentally telling her something that she didn’t know yet. But then, he figured, she probably had the same dilemma about him.

“I thought I’d never have to see him again,” Bucky said to nobody in particular. He was staring at the wall opposite him, not looking at either Steve or Wanda.

“I know,” Wanda said.

“How are you feeling?” Bucky asked Steve, finally looking at him.

Steve shrugged in response. “Fine, I guess. ‘S not like I can feel pain anyway,” he said, trying to sound casual. It was true; he wasn’t hurting, but he still felt more of the attack than he thought he would. It wasn’t pain, exactly. More like a dull throbbing. He tried not to think about the fact that this had been happening more and more often - this strange return of feeling. It wouldn’t do to freak out now. Bucky needed him.

Bucky’s eyes were far away again and he was rocking back and forth, knees drawn up, as if to soothe himself.

“Did I say something?” Steve asked, looking to Wanda, who was biting her lip in agitation, for answers.

“He used to say that,” Bucky said, voice quiet as a whisper.

“Say what?” Steve asked.

Bucky shook his head and he looked at Wanda pleadingly.

“Do you want me to tell him instead?” Wanda asked and Bucky nodded. “Brock used the fact that we don’t feel pain as an excuse to hurt him.”

Steve saw how Bucky flinched at Brock’s name. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could treat another person so badly. Just because they couldn’t feel physical pain, didn’t mean anyone could just use them however they pleased. A crystal clear picture formed in Steve’s mind. Bucky, who was vulnerable after leaving the one person he always felt he could count on, met Brock, who took advantage of him. Forced him to have sex, hurt him, all because he didn’t think Bucky could feel the way a real human being could anyway. He wanted to throw up. 

It was a miracle Bucky was even sitting here. With all the horrible things that had happened to him, it was incredible that he hadn’t given up. Steve was absolutely sure of one thing: Bucky was a fighter. He had to be, to be where he was now. It was even more admirable that Bucky had managed to let Steve into his life. He would have had plenty of reasons never to trust anyone again. His trust had been betrayed over and over. Steve wouldn’t have blamed him if he had locked himself in his apartment and never came out. It wouldn’t have been healthy, of course, but it certainly would have been understandable.

His heart swelled with love and adoration for Bucky.

Wanda ended up staying the rest of the night. Steve was torn between his obligations to his mom and to Bucky, but in the end, he decided Bucky’s need was more acute right now. He called Natasha to explain in the vaguest terms possible what had happened. She assured him it was no trouble to check in on Sarah again in the evening.

If only this was something that could be easily fixed. Steve was a fixer, always had been. If he saw a problem, he wanted to find the solution. But whatever Bucky was going through right now had no obvious fix. There was not much Steve could do except just _be_ there.

Bucky went to take a shower after a while, and when he came back, he was clearly craving some kind of physical contact. He sat down close to Steve, who carefully put his arm around Bucky. He looked a little bit more like himself again, though still shaken.

Bucky fell asleep on the couch eventually, his head in Steve’s lap.

————————————————

 

They were woken up by Steve’s phone ringing. Bucky sat bolt upright and Steve scrambled to find his phone. What if something went wrong with his mother? He didn’t recognize the caller-ID, but maybe someone was trying to call him from the hospital.

“Hello?”

“Steve? This is Dr. Banner. Is this a good time?”

For half a second, Steve panicked. Something bad must have happened. But then he remembered he’d been waiting for this call. “Uhh, yeah, sure,” he said, still a little dazed. He walked over to the kitchen, giving Bucky a reassuring smile on the way.

“Okay, great. I’d like to talk to you in person, do you have time to come by today at 2:30?”

Steve’s throat felt parched. He almost filled a glass of water, until he reminded himself that made no sense. “Yeah, I can make 2:30.” He needed answers; he could only hope Dr. Banner had them.

“Good. I’ll see you then. And give my best to your mother,” Dr. Banner said before ending the call.

Steve stared at his phone for a few seconds. There was no way of knowing what, if anything, Dr. Banner had found out. He might even have decided that Steve’s symptoms were a threat and report Steve to PDS health officials. No, he had to trust that Dr. Banner wouldn’t betray him.

“You okay?” Bucky asked, approaching Steve.

Steve mustered a smile. “Yeah, just have an appointment this afternoon at the hospital.” It wasn’t a lie, technically. Bucky would assume that the appointment was about Sarah, and that was best for now. Steve resolved to tell him what it was really about once he knew what Dr. Banner had to tell him. “What about you?” Steve asked.

Bucky shrugged. “I’ll live,” he said.

Steve stepped a little closer, keeping a careful eye on any signs of distress. “But really, how are you feeling?”

“Been better,” Bucky said, his eyes trained on the floor. “Didn’t think I’d have to see him again.” He leaned against the counter. “Tried to make him care for so long. But I don’t think he ever did.”

Bucky was biting his lip, looking completely lost and vulnerable in the oversized sweater he was wearing. It struck Steve again how beautiful Bucky was. Steve would give him the world if he could. He stepped even closer, searching for Bucky’s eyes. He had to look him in the eye for this. “I love you.”

The naked vulnerability on Bucky’s face as those words hit home made Steve want to say it over and over again.

“You don’t have to say it. But I want you to know that I love you, Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky leaned down for a kiss. “I love you, too.” He said the words quietly, like a prayer meant only for the two of them.

———————————————————

 

Steve was sitting in Dr. Banner’s office, his knee bouncing nervously. He wasn’t sure what to expect. He’d been able to keep his worries at bay for most of the day - he’d had other concerns - but now that he was actually sitting there, all those concerns surfaced with a vengeance.

“I’ve asked around about your symptoms. I kept your name out of it, of course,” Dr. Banner reassured him. “I just framed it as professional curiosity.”

Steve let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“I asked about known side effects of the drugs and if there were any cases of people becoming immune. You’re not the only one experiencing these side effects, but I haven’t been able to find out what these symptoms mean.” Dr. Banner paused briefly, clasping and unclasping his hands in front of him. “I don’t think anyone has become immune to the drugs - the scandal that would result from hiding that information from the public would be too great. And frankly, and forgive me for saying this, I doubt there is much institutional interest in protecting PDS sufferers from a panicked public.”

“But?” Steve asked, sensing there must have been more to this.

Dr. Banner nodded. “But, I suspect that the PDS sufferers who’ve declared these symptoms to their health care providers have been shipped off to a Zola and Karpov facility.”

It felt like the air had left the room. “What makes you say that?”

“It was very difficult getting answers to any of my questions. And those who did talk, asked me repeatedly if I knew anyone with these symptoms. I kept repeating that I didn’t, that I was simply considering a career switch. It’s not uncommon for oncologists to switch to a different field of medicine,” he added.

“In any case, there’s a lot of mystery surrounding these symptoms, which leads me to believe that they don’t want anyone to know that people are experiencing symptoms at all. They probably don’t fully understand it themselves and want to experiment to find out what exactly is happening. They might not be operating legally, strictly speaking.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to find out anything else,” Dr. Banner concluded. “I’m not sure it’s wise for me to continue asking around. It might create suspicions that I _do_ know someone with these symptoms, which might put you in danger.”

Steve nodded. “I understand. Thank you for trying all the same.” At least it was a relief to hear that he probably wasn’t becoming immune to the drugs. He’d deal with whatever else came on his path.

“If your symptoms worsen, or you want to discuss them with someone, feel free to talk to me,” Dr. Banner said kindly.

Steve left the hospital feeling empty. He barely even noticed the way the watery sun warmed his skin.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes a little later than I had wanted it to. Life has kind of been getting in the way of writing. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: minor character death. I'm sorry in advance for the feels. I promise, we're nearly there.

In the end, the last month went by more quickly than Bucky ever thought possible.

The encounter with Brock had left him shaken and scared. The manager of the community center got in touch with Bucky a few days later. He’d contacted Steve first, indicating he wanted to talk to Bucky as well. Steve had given the manager Bucky’s number after asking if that was okay with him. Bucky wasn’t sure what he would want to talk about, but he wanted to thank the manager for his help that day. He’d been too out of it to do so at the time.

“Hello Mr. Barnes, this is Luke Cage, we met a few days ago at the PDS center,” the voice on the other end of the line said.

“Hi, yeah, I wanted to thank you for, well…” Bucky said, his voice trailing off.

It was quiet for a beat, then, “No need to thank me. I just wanted to inform you of what happened after you left.” He paused for a moment. “Do you want to hear this now?”

Bucky felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, like a bag of bricks had just been dropped in his gut. Still, if he didn’t hear about this now, he’d just fret about it until he did. “Yeah, I think so,” he finally said.

“Okay, well, I have good news for you. We called the police - we didn’t want him to go to the police on his own and accuse us of anything. They assessed the situation pretty quickly, there were plenty of witnesses who all told the same story. And uh, well it helps that me and my business partner are both living. You could press charges if you want, there’s already a record of the events on file, and me and my partner would be happy to help you if you want. He happens to be a lawyer as well.”

Halfway through Luke’s story, Bucky slumped back on the couch, finally releasing a deep sigh of relief. He’d been worried Brock might use this incident to find him, that just when Bucky started to feel he could begin to put this behind him, Brock would force his way back into Bucky’s life. The possibility of good news hadn’t even occurred to him. “So, the police believed you? No question?”

“Yes, like I said, I think it helped that we’re both living. I don’t know what they might have done if it was the word of PDS sufferers against that of a living person.”

“Thank you, for everything,” Bucky said. “I don’t think I’ll press charges, I just want this to be over, but thank you.”

“I understand,” Luke said. “If you change your mind, you know where to find us.”

Bucky thanked him again. He stared at his phone for a while after hanging up, still not quite believing what just happened.

————————————————

“Bucky, could you read to me for a while?” Sarah asked. She was lying in bed, Bucky keeping her company from a rickety old chair beside her. Steve was at work. They agreed that if at all possible, someone should keep Sarah company. It was getting increasingly difficult for her to perform simple tasks by herself, but more than that, Steve worried about her being lonely.

“Yeah, of course.” Bucky picked up the book from Sarah’s bedside table. It was a well-worn copy of _A Thousand Splendid Suns._ It must be one of her favorites, Bucky thought. She was just a few chapters in, and Bucky started reading to her. He was about halfway through the chapter when she interrupted him.

“Bucky?”

“Hmm?” Bucky replied, looking up from the book.

“Do you know what’s going on with Steve lately?” she asked, looking at Bucky with eyes that had become far too big for her face, reminiscent of Steve’s.

Bucky shook his head. He’d noticed it too, but he hadn’t had a chance to bring it up yet. Between dealing with the fallout of seeing Brock again and worrying about Sarah, they’d had very few moments to just sit and talk.

“He’ll tell you.” She said it confidently, like a statement of fact. “You’ll take care of him, right?”

Bucky looked at her. She wasn’t doing well, that much was clear. “For as long as he wants me to,” Bucky promised.

“I’m glad he found you when he did,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it lightly.

“Yeah, I’m glad I found him, too.”

Bucky wondered what this was like for Steve. To know beforehand that your mother is going to die, soon. To know that you’ll have time to say goodbye, and yet, never quite knowing when that moment comes, so instead, you get a series of small goodbyes and promises and declarations. For so many years, Bucky wished he could have said goodbye to his parents, that he could have told them one last time that he loved them, with all the weight of that love behind it, not in the throwaway fashion people tell each other they love one another. But now, he wasn’t so sure. There was something to say for the blissful ignorance he’d had up until the moment those police officers showed up at his door.

He interrupted his own train of thought and continued reading to Sarah until she fell asleep.

————————————————

“You know that day I went to the hospital, a few weeks ago?” Steve said, apropos of nothing. They had been watching a movie in the living room, Sarah asleep in her room.

Bucky looked away from the screen to focus on Steve. “Yeah?”

Steve avoided his eyes. Maybe he’d finally share what had been bothering him. “I didn’t go there for my mom,” he began, speaking in a low voice. “I uh, I asked Dr. Banner to look into my symptoms. You know, from the meds. They’ve been getting worse.”

“What kind of symptoms?” Bucky asked. He tried not to sound too worried.

“Black-outs, tremors, sudden urge to eat,” Steve said in a monotone.

Bucky sat a little straighter, trying to find Steve’s eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Didn’t want to worry you when I didn’t even know what it was.”

“So do you know now?”

Steve shook his head. “Dr. Banner only found out there _are_ others with these symptoms. He thinks people like me are being sent to a Zola and Karpov facility for testing.”

Bucky’s lungs constricted. “Do you trust him?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Steve said, looking at Bucky for the first time since this conversation began.

“So, now what?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said.

Bucky pulled Steve into a hug. “We’ll deal with it.”

————————————————

Sarah’s condition worsened quickly. She spent more and more time in bed. She barely ate, which only made her even weaker. Steve was in a constant state of stress. He didn’t give himself much of a break, even though he desperately needed it.

“How’s Steve holding up?” Natasha asked. She’d come over earlier that day, while Steve and Bucky were both at work. Steve was napping by Sarah’s bedside, while Bucky sat in the kitchen with Natasha, feeling mostly useless.

Bucky shrugged. “About as well as can be expected. Which is not well at all.”

Natasha nodded. She was sipping from a freshly made cup of coffee. “If you want to do something with him sometime, me and Sam can come over. I think he could use a break.” She took another sip. “And so could you.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

She put her mug down. “You’re here most days, right?”

Bucky nodded.

“Well, that’s what I mean. You could use a break as much as Steve.”

“I guess.”

“Seriously, plan something for the two of you. Try to take your mind off things for a little while.”

The suggestion stayed with Bucky, and a few days later, he decided to just go for it. Both him and Steve had Sunday off. Sam and Natasha could stay with Sarah, just in case. Bucky decided not to tell Steve until that Sunday - he suspected Steve would protest and kill the idea before it could even begin.

Sure enough, when Bucky brought it up, Steve shook his head.

“I can’t just leave,” he protested.

“Sam and Natasha are coming over in half an hour. It’s already set up. Your mom knows about it, too. We’ll be back here by dinner time. It’s just a few hours, Steve.”

“But-”

Bucky stepped a little closer. “You need this.” He lifted Steve’s chin with his fingers. “There’s nothing wrong with taking a break.”

“What if something happens?” Steve asked, and Bucky knew then that he’d won.

“Sam and Natasha will call us. C’mon, Steve,” Bucky said. “Let me do this?”

Steve sighed. “Okay.” He walked to Sarah’s room, grumbling something about Bucky being a pain in the ass. Bucky smiled to himself. “I’ll be back in a few hours, okay ma?” Steve said softly to his mother.

Sarah nodded. She was lucid enough now. She’d started hallucinating a few days ago, scaring Steve so much he hadn’t slept at all that night. “Just go. I’ll be here when you get back.” It was meant to be light-hearted, but Bucky could feel the weight behind it.

Bucky took Steve to the Morgan Library & Museum. It combined their love of books and love of art and Bucky had been meaning to go there with Steve for a while. They just never got around to it.

Natasha had been right. It was good to get out of the house, away from the oppressive atmosphere that had settled on every surface of the apartment. Bucky didn’t forget about Sarah while he was there, and he was certain neither did Steve, but they could breathe fresher air that afternoon.

They trailed the building slowly, Steve’s hand securely in his own, Steve appreciating the art in ways Bucky couldn’t begin to understand. Whenever he saw something he particularly loved, he would subconsciously squeeze Bucky’s hand.

When they stepped outside, Steve pulled Bucky in for a hug. “Thank you.” He kissed Bucky briefly, more a peck than anything else. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

————————————————

Bucky woke up, plastered to Steve’s back, arm slung over Steve’s side. It was still dark outside, so he just lay there, listening to the sound of Steve breathing. The realization hit him in slow-motion. He felt a heartbeat against his hand where it was pressed against Steve’s chest. He pressed his entire palm to Steve’s heart. He wasn’t imagining this. There was a steady thump-thump against his hand.

“Steve!” Bucky shook him lightly, trying to wake him up.

“What?” Steve asked groggily, eyes still closed.

Bucky took his hand and placed it against Steve’s chest, his own hand covering it. Steve’s eyes flew open in shock as he registered what he was feeling. “Is that…is this real? I’m not dreaming?”

Bucky shook his head. “Definitely real.”

“Holy shit.” He let out a laugh. “Holy shit, Buck.” He pulled Bucky down for a kiss, gasping into Bucky’s mouth at the contact. “Jesus Christ, I can feel everything.” He laughed, a beautifully breathless sound, the first genuine laughter Bucky had heard from him in ages.

“How do you feel?” Bucky asked. He wasn’t sure how he should feel about this development.

“Amazing. I don’t even know how to describe it, Buck.” He kissed Bucky again, all but climbing in Bucky’s lap. When he finally pulled back, he grinned. “Can finally fully appreciate how good of a kisser you are.”

Bucky laughed. “That the biggest advantage of being alive, huh?”

“Well, yeah.” Steve’s stomach rumbled loudly. “Christ, I’m starving.”

Steve made a breakfast far too big for just one person, Bucky watching him eat until he couldn’t anymore.

Sarah made it out of her room to see why they were up so early. “What are you do-” She stopped short when she saw Steve chewing on pancakes. “Am I hallucinating?”

Steve shook his head. Bucky walked up to her and guided her to a chair. “This is real, Sarah,” he said quietly.

“Feel, ma,” Steve said, pointing to his chest.

She placed her hand over his heart carefully, tears rolling down her cheeks as she felt her son’s heartbeat. “Never thought I’d feel this again. Even when I got you back. I thought this was gone.”

Steve’s eyes filled with tears, too, spilling over a moment later.

————————————————

Sarah died on a Tuesday morning. They knew it was coming. She’d been quietly saying goodbye to everyone that last week. Her lucid moments became few and far in between. Steve, though blood was now flowing through his veins, was still incredibly pale. He didn’t get much sleep, and neither did Bucky for that matter.

Watching someone suffer the way Sarah was suffering was unbearable. Bucky didn’t understand why the universe would have to be so cruel. At least his parents’ deaths had been swift. As far as he knew, they hadn’t suffered much. But this, this was painful in every imaginable way.

That Sunday before she died, she’d been so confused about where she was, she didn’t remember Steve had come back. Steve had walked into her room and she had burst into tears, thinking she was looking at the specter of her son. “Stevie, I miss you so much,” she had choked out in between sobs.

The look on Steve’s face - trying to keep it together while his heart was clearly breaking - had twisted at Bucky’s own heart.

In the end, Bucky was glad she went soon after that. Nothing good could come of dragging this out any longer. They were in enough pain as it was.

She went peacefully, Steve lying by her side, slowly slipping away. When she stopped breathing, Steve slowly placed his hand over her heart, a mirror image of just a few weeks earlier.

Sarah had expressed most of her wishes before she died, relieving the burden on Steve to organize everything. Bucky did as much as he could. Steve shouldn’t have to worry about these things.

“How did you do this?” Steve asked as they lay in bed, two nights after she died.

“You keep going,” Bucky replied.

“You make it sound so easy.”

Bucky took a deep breath. “It’s not. I know. But you’re still here. You’re still here.”

The funeral was a quiet, understated affair, just the way Sarah would have liked. There was a small circle of Sarah’s friends, as well as some of Steve’s friends. Sam and Natasha, Peggy and Angie, Wanda. Bucky was surprised to see Luke Cage walk in just before the ceremony began, accompanied by a blind man, who Bucky guessed was his business partner.

Steve wanted to give a eulogy. He hadn’t let Bucky read it yet, but he’d asked Bucky to stand next to him while he read it during the service.

“Ma was a fighter,” Steve began. “She used to tell me the story of how, when doctors first found my heart defect and told her I wouldn’t live a long life, she raged at them and told them I’d show them. Well, I guess I did, just not in the way anyone expected.” A quiet laugh went through the room. “When I came back, the staff at the medical center told her to prepare for a shock. That I’d changed, looked different. Maybe she was shocked, but she never showed it to me. She’s always been in my corner.” Steve took a shaky breath, a few tears rolling down his cheeks.

“She was dealt a rough hand. Her husband died young, leaving her to raise me, a sickly child, on her own. I was sick most of my life and then she had to deal with losing me. But she never became a cynic. She was never jaded. She loved well and she loved hard. And…” A few shaky breaths. “And I’m glad I got to experience a few more years of that love.”

Steve turned his head to the side to speak directly to Sarah’s coffin. “You hated the winter. The way the cold would always make my lungs rattle. You couldn’t wait for it to be over. Ma, I know you loved the springtime. Everything sparking back to life. This has been a long winter, but yesterday was the first sunny day of the year. We’re headed in the right direction again, ma. I just wish you’d been here to see it.” 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for taking so long to finish this story, but the final chapter is finally here!! Thank you for sticking around :).

Bucky spent the weeks following Sarah’s death at Steve’s apartment, trying to look after him, make sure he’d eat and try to get him to leave the house for something other than work. Steve seemed to be in a different world for a while and Bucky found it hard to connect to him. Wanda, Sam and Natasha did their best to distract him from his grief too, but most of it to no avail. 

Slowly, as the days became noticeably longer and the sun showed its face more and more, Steve seemed to be more inclined to get out of bed in the morning and make breakfast. Life began to return to his eyes, both literally and figuratively, as his irises had gone from the dull gray of the undead to their original bright blue. Bucky was in awe of those eyes and he expected he would be in awe of them for the rest of his life. 

“How did you get through this?” Steve asked. They had been watching a movie together on the couch, but neither of them had been paying very close attention. 

“I don’t know. You think the pain lasts forever, but then one day, you wake up and it’s not so bad. And maybe the next day it’s shit again. But after a while, you realize the better days come more and more often.” Bucky looked at Steve, who was crying again. “And it helped that I could pass everything off behind a brooding teenager facade,” he added, trying to make Steve laugh. He felt victorious when he saw a tiny smile on his face. 

“Sometimes I feel better and then I feel like shit for feeling better. Like I’m dishonoring her memory,” Steve said quietly.

Bucky remembered that feeling. “I know. Trust me, I know. But your memory of her shouldn’t be clouded by this sadness. You should make room for happy memories to take their place. And they will hurt too, for a while. But your love for her is not defined by the pain you feel at her loss.” 

Steve looked at him, those bright blue eyes shining with tears. “Maybe you should write a self help book,” he joked.

Bucky laughed. “Yeah, cause I’m the poster child for being well-adjusted.”

Steve snorted loudly. “Sorry, that was mean.”

Bucky shook his head. “No, just the way it is.” He pulled Steve closer to him and kissed him softly, ran a hand through his hair. He reveled in touching Steve as much as he could now, knowing that Steve could feel everything. 

When he pulled back, Steve grabbed his hand. “Your hand is shaking,” he said pointedly.

Bucky gave him a look. “Could be a coincidence.” He’d never had the kind of violent reaction to the medication that Steve had had for a long time. 

“Could be. Could also be a symptom,” Steve argued. “Keep an eye on it, okay?” 

Bucky nodded, promising Steve that he would.

————————————————

Reports started coming in from all over the country of others like Steve, who had regained a heartbeat. Suddenly, the discussion of PDS rights became a prominent news item. Assigning PDS sufferers to menial jobs for less than minimum wage seemed morally reprehensible to a lot of people all of a sudden, now that the differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ had become virtually negligible. 

Bucky wondered what Tony would make of all this. Amid the grief Steve displayed for Sarah, Bucky had felt a pang of emptiness at the memory of his relationship with Tony. For a long time, Tony had been his family. He couldn’t help but wonder if Tony would ever consider picking up the pieces again. More importantly, he’d never had closure. Bucky had just left, abruptly, and he had no idea how Tony had felt about that. Had he been relieved, happy, disappointed, angry? The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to know.

Over the next month, Bucky’s tremors increased and he noticed more feeling whenever Steve touched him. He wasn’t about to see a doctor though, not even Dr. Banner. If he was going to regain his heartbeat, like Steve, he would notice soon enough. 

Karpov and Zola put out an official statement declaring that, based on extensive research on people with a number of symptoms, such as increased feeling, they expected the majority of PDS sufferers to eventually regain vital functions such as a heartbeat. Bucky felt vaguely nauseous thinking about what might have happened to Steve, had he disclosed to someone other than Dr. Banner what was happening to him. He would have become one of their test bunnies. 

“Hey, you okay?” Steve asked him.

Bucky blinked and shook his head, turning his head away from the TV and the news anchor explaining the implications of this statement and focusing on Steve. “Yeah, yeah, just thinking about the people they ‘researched.’” 

Steve frowned. “What did they do to you?” he asked softly.

Bucky swallowed thickly. A part of him wanted to deflect, but another part of him wanted to share this with Steve. He knew Steve must have put some things together already; the scar on his back was hard to miss, for one. Still, he’d never actually _told_ Steve what happened. “I was the first one to respond to the medication,” he began. “They didn’t tell me I had died, just that I was sick. And they could help others if they continued testing on me. So I said yes.

“I thought they wanted what was best for everyone, so it didn’t bother me at first. But they kept me away from everyone else. I was lonely. And they had me strapped to that table, naked, every day.” He took a big, shaky breath.

“They left me like that, one day. There was some emergency and they just forgot about me. I don’t know how long I stayed there, I couldn’t move, nobody could hear me scream for help. I told them I wanted to quit, but I didn’t think they’d let me. They always told me I was special because I was the first. But they let me go, just like that. They had others they could do their tests on. I didn’t matter to them.” 

Steve pulled him into a hug. “God, Buck, I’m so sorry.” He pulled back slightly to cup Bucky’s face in his hands. “You’re the strongest person I know.” 

Bucky let out an involuntary sob. 

“You are. And I love you,” Steve said, kissing him to punctuate his words. 

————————————————

It turned out that injustice was the thing that lit a fire in Steve’s belly again. The more PDS sufferers warmed up, as the press had taken to calling it, the more ‘allies’ suddenly crawled out of the woodwork. 

“Where were they when the government implemented the give-back program? _Now_ they give a shit? Now that some of us look like them, they suddenly find it in themselves to care? Fuck that!” Steve ranted at a meeting at the community center. Steve was one of the few who had warmed up, though a few more exhibited early symptoms, like Bucky. “They want to give people like me a free pass from this shitty fucking program, and leave everyone else hanging. It’s just the same old bullshit.” 

A bill had been introduced in the state legislature that would release PDS sufferers like Steve, who had warmed up, from the program. It would do nothing to dismantle the program in its entirety however, at least not until every PDS sufferer could no longer be classified as undead. And the question still remained if every single one of them _could_ warm up. 

Bucky was angry about the whole situation, but Steve was livid. He started going out of the house again to go to rallies and stand with his fellow PDS sufferers, even if he himself was no longer technically classified as one. Bucky went along, at first to keep Steve company, but soon he found that he _wanted_ to go. It felt good to stand for something. 

Sometimes, they’d spot Luke Cage, or his business partner, Matt Murdock, among the protesters. They would make it to a rally or protest whenever they could, along with a handful of other living allies. Bucky wasn’t quite up to going back to the center they’d set up, but he wanted to go back sometime in the future. 

The protests gave Steve a clear reason to get up in the morning. Bucky could tell he still carried his sadness around with him, but he was no longer fully consumed by it. 

They fell into a routine together and Bucky spent at least half of his week at Steve’s. So when Steve said, “Move in with me,” it seemed like the most reasonable thing in the world. Bucky suspected Steve didn’t want to live alone in the home that reminded him so much of his mother, that with Bucky around, it would be more bearable. 

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me alone in that shithole,” Wanda complained, though her tone was light. 

“You’re welcome to find a new shithole,” Bucky suggested.

She smiled. “I might do that, actually.” She hugged him tightly. “You look good. Happy.” 

“I wouldn’t have without you,” Bucky said. Without Wanda, he might never have left his apartment. She wormed her way into his life and took him along into hers. He’d never be able to repay her for that. 

Bucky had decided to leave what little furniture he had. He had no use for it anymore. Wanda helped them load boxes into Natasha’s car and hugged Bucky again before they drove off. It would be weird not to have her living next door anymore, even though she still lived close by. 

For the first time in a long time, Bucky felt like he had a family again. Steve, Wanda, Sam, and Natasha had become the center of his own tiny universe. Inevitably, his thoughts turned to Tony again; that other family member he still missed, even though two years had passed since they last spoke. 

“I just wish I could know how he felt, you know,” Bucky said.

Steve nodded. “So maybe you should reach out to him. You still have his address?” 

“I don’t know if he still lives there,” Bucky said. 

“It’s worth a shot, though, isn’t it?” Steve asked.

In the end, Bucky agreed. He wrote at least a dozen versions of the same letter before finally settling on one. It was short, but it served its purpose. What he wanted to do most was open a door to talk to Tony again. If Tony wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t want to read pages and pages of Bucky’s rambling. It was a complete shot in the dark; Bucky wasn’t sure if Tony wouldn’t just tear up the letter without opening it, if he even got it at all. 

_Dear Tony,_

_If you’re reading this letter, thank you for not throwing it out immediately. Words can’t express how sorry I am, how much I wish I could take back what I did that night, how much I wish I would have just stayed in my grave, how much I wish I would never have enlisted in the army. And yet, none of these regrets are enough. I can’t change what happened and you have every right to never want to talk to me again. All I can do is say how sorry I am._

_Still, if you want to, I would love to talk to you again. You were my one constant in this world for a long time and I will never forget that. I’ll be your brother again, if you want me to be. If not, I’ll understand._

_Wishing you all the best,_

_Bucky_

He mailed the letter the next day, trying to put it out of his mind as soon as he had done so. The odds of getting a response were not in his favor, so he thought it best to try not to think about it at all. 

A month passed with no response. Bucky tried not to be too disappointed. It had always been a long shot. He tried to focus on his activism and let go of Tony altogether. It seemed like the smarter thing to do. They had yet to book a major victory; courts usually decided against them, barely considering them humans. And if they did, it only applied to those who had already warmed up.

“America can think of corporations as people, but actual human beings are not technically people,” Steve said angrily. Him, Bucky, Natasha and Sam had been hanging out in a nearby park all afternoon, enjoying their Saturday off. Still, Steve had never had an ounce of chill, which he displayed once again. Bucky loved him for it. 

Sam gave him a pointed look. “Kind of a theme in this country.” 

Steve nodded in agreement. “Yeah, and it’s all bullshit. This whole country was built on lies and fantasies, and somehow people think that’s enough. That we’ve made it. You gotta work to make those fantasies come true.”

“I don’t know if they ever will,” Sam countered. “But I’ll keep fighting for them anyway.”

Natasha raised her glass. “I’ll drink to that. You guys can pretend to toast,” she said to Sam and Bucky.

“Tell me again why I love you?” Sam asked.

“Because I’m amazing. And you know it.” Natasha smiled at him, then kissed him.

Sam grinned. “As usual, you’re right.” 

Bucky looked at them fondly, trying to commit every detail of this day to his memory.

————————————————

Summer announced itself with a sweltering heat that Bucky could feel much more acutely than he’d been expecting. Steve complained loudly and frequently that he hadn’t missed this part of being alive. Bucky laughed at him each and every time. 

“Just you wait,” Steve would always say. “Soon you’ll be feeling this too and you won’t be laughing anymore.” 

Bucky’s symptoms had become more and more pronounced and he’d been expecting to experience actual hunger any day now. He was glad to only partially feel this heat wave, though. Sure enough, just a few days later, Bucky’s stomach grumbled loudly. Steve grinned at him and practically threw a chocolate bar at him, which Bucky devoured with great pleasure. 

Seven weeks after he sent the letter, he found an envelope on his doorstep in familiar scribbly handwriting. In his hurry to open it, he almost tore it in half, proceeding with more caution afterwards. 

_Dear Bucky,_

_I wasn’t sure if I should reply to you at first. Every time I sat down to write a reply, a voice in the back of my head told me I didn’t have anything left to say to you. But that’s not true. I don’t know if things can go back to the way they were before. You have to understand, I saw you kill my mother. The rational part of my brain tells me, it wasn’t really you. And I know that. But that image is still there, and it will never go away._

_I’d like to give it a shot, though. I worried about you, after you left. I had no idea where you could have gone. I hope you found a safe place and I hope you’re safe now._

Bucky felt tears welling up in his eyes. His thoughts drifted to the worst months of his life, when he was living with Brock. He had to put the letter down for a while and ground himself before he could continue. 

_I’m sorry for the things I said that night. I don’t hate you. I never should have said that._

_I’m not so good with forgiveness. You know this. I held a grudge against my father for years. That’s what I do: I hold grudges. I hope you can forgive me for that. (See what I did there?) But like I said, I’d like to try. You’re the only family I got left._

_If you want to talk in person, you can call me on this number: 212-555-3954._

_I hope you’ve been well,_

_Tony_

Steve came home to Bucky crying on the couch, still clutching the letter in his hand. Steve took the letter, a worried look on his face, but when he saw who the letter was from, he hugged Bucky tightly. 

“I really hope this works out. For both of you,” Steve said fervently.

“Yeah, me too,” Bucky agreed. 

————————————————

Steve’s birthday was coming up, though Steve had insisted that he didn’t want to do anything special. He wasn’t ready to celebrate his birthday without his mother present. Bucky could respect that. They went about the day as if it was just any day, until Bucky took Steve up to the roof in the evening. He had enlisted Natasha to buy the kind of terrible cheap white wine Steve loved - PDS sufferers technically weren’t allowed to buy alcohol - and brought a couple of bottles up on the roof with him.

They sat on the roof, Steve sitting with his back against Bucky’s chest, watching the fireworks and getting pleasantly buzzed on cheap wine. No matter how things would turn out with Tony, he would always have this, with Steve. This tiny universe they had created together would be enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're still here and read this story all the way to the end, thank you so so much <3.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Kudos and comments are always appreciated.
> 
> Come say hi on [my tumblr!](http://hufflepuffbuckybarnes.tumblr.com/)


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